Welcome to Citywatch September 2003 - March 2004

CAPACITY BUILDING

Energy boosters for federations in Andhra Pradesh

One of the most important milestones this year was the revival of the Andhra Pradesh federations. Although the 1990s had seen a flurry of activities in housing and sanitation in federated communities living in Hyderadad, Secunderabad and Poth Taluk, local disputes and changing leadership had weakened the momentum of these federations. It was time, thought the national leadership, to awake these sleeping cousins!

In the beginning of November, a team of six core leaders from Mumbai, spent two intense weeks visiting old federations and their settlements to support their efforts, explaining their strategies to new non-federated communities, sharing the work that had gone on across the country, and helping local leaders plan for the future.

In the mid 1990s, about 30 households from four federated communities in Poth Taluk had experimented with a very innovative housing idea - they had taken loans to build a ground storey structure with a shop in front and a house at the back. Ensured a steady stream of income, they had repaid their loans. However, this had not been scaled up, and leaders invited other communities in Poth Taluk to meet with these members and explore this in their communities.

An interesting opportunity that the federation has decided to explore was a government housing subsidy programme that they came across in a new non-federated community called Azad Nagar. About 700 households live in this settlement and a number of households have been given Rs. 30,000 by the government to construct ground plus one-storey structures. Although only Rs. 6000 is meant as a subsidy and the rest is to be repaid, people were confused as to the terms and conditions of this repayment. After explaining the workings of the federation, leaders promised to support residents in their efforts to ensure that they did indeed benefit from this scheme, and that, in turn, this subsidy would be understood, studied and accessed by more communities.

Finally, the federation made a commitment to spending considerable time building relationships and negotiating with local authorities to ensure minimum sanitation. Of all the dozen new communities housing thousands of households that they visited, not one had a toilet. It is now up to local federations to decide which settlements are ready, strategic and should be taken up for toilet negotiations and construction.

The federation couldn't have timed its trip better! In an amazing development, the state government of Andhra Pradesh approached SPARC at the beginning of 2004 to help the government design a state-wide sanitation policy and implementation plan! The cities of Hyderabad, Vijaywada and Vizag were chosen as demonstration cities to build the first 20 toilet blocks. In fact, the municipality of VIzag has signed an Memorandum of Understanding with the Alliance to make the entire city open defecation free by the end of 2004! With such initiatives, the Alliance hopes to set a precedent for slum sanitation by introducing both the federation's community toilet model for the first time in the state and also using this opportunity to train local communities and Mahila Milan groups in supervision of the entire construction and maintenance process. Once these local leaders are trained, they, in turn, can independently organise settlements in their cities and regions around the issue of sanitation. Thus, the demand, as well the capacity to manage this demand, will be led and rooted in the grassroots! It is a watershed moment for poor communities and federations in Andhra Pradesh.

Consolidating our strength in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu

In March 2004, one hundred women from the twelve slums in Tiruvannamalai district applied for loans to build individual toilets. They had saved money to contribute an initial downpayment, negotiated with their local authorities and had received training in construction. But the story of how these Mahila Milan women got involved in such a scheme dates back to one year ago.

Until the beginning of 2003, federated communities in the cities of Arani, Pollur, Tiruvannamalai and Chengam (all in Tiruvannamalai district) and their Mahila Milan leaders simply managed their savings and credit activities. They collected daily savings, distributed crises and income generation loans and managed their accounts in their respective settlements.

In 2003, things started to change. Federated cities around them became very active in their housing and sanitation work and began to make progress with their local authorities. Tirupatur held a successful housing exhibition, Theni and Pondicherry started building toilets. Tiruvannamalai leaders, who visited all these cities, felt inspired - they too had to work on these issues in their communities.

In early 2003, they requested support from the national federation to set up a city-level federation. The rest of the year was spent holding joint meetings, discussing community-specific issues and how to resolve them, forming a collective strategy and identity, and setting up more regular links with strong federations in Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore. Padmanbhan, one of the oldest leaders of the federation, visited Tiruvannamalai three times in the year, mentoring and guiding local Mahila Milan leadership. What was constantly reiterated was that leaders had to build their financial and managerial capacities to resolve smaller issues of repayment and transparency within their settlements and their membership before they could take on more complex housing and sanitation negotiations.

The application for individual toilet loans for one hundred women indicates that now that Mahila Milan is confident in its ability to handle repayments and supervision of crises and Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (income generation) funds, they are ready to move onto the next step in federation activity and take on individual loans.

What this story also reveals is that it is only when communities see and experience community-led change in other areas that they begin to believe that such transformation is also within their reach. Secondly, although mature federation leaders are deeply committed to mentoring newly emerging leaders, there is only an extent to which hand-holding produces results. Sustainable initiatives which can then be scaled up must be led by local groups who feel empowered to make decisions, produce solutions and, most importantly, are allowed to learn from their mistakes.

Pimpri Chinchwad- An Emerging Federation in Maharashtra

The Pimpri Chinchwad Federation is an emerging one. As part of the NSDF's strategy of more established federations supporting newer ones, the Mumbai Mahila Milan team went to Pimpri-Chinchwad in July 2003 and discussed issues related to savings, loans and repayments with them. Through these discussions, which are two-way exchanges of ideas and strategies, the federations together develop ways of dealing with the challenges they face in their respective environments. The Pimpri Federation, although a relatively small one, has grown in the last few years. Today 23 communities, including those from Sangamwadi, Annapavsathe nagar, Shanti nagar, Sambaji nagar, Heerabai nagar, Balaji nagar, Lodewadi nagar, Kashit Basthi Nagar, Phule nagar and Harish Bridge area are members. Pushpa Shivkar, social worker, who works with the communities at Pimpri, says, "There are a number of other savings groups in Pimpri, including those initiated by the Corporation. Many of these operate on the principle of hand-outs. The reason that the Mahila Milan concept is taking time to entrench itself is that we don't believe in giving any thing free."

Slum Policing in Pimpri...

The Pimpri-Chinchwad federation is also closely linked to the Pune Mahila Milan and these federations work together on some initiatives. Like in the Zopadpatti Police Sahayak Committees, a slum policing initiative managed by slum dwellers themselves, assisted by a local constable. which began in Pune. This scheme extends to slums in Pimpri Chinchwad. In November 2003, a Police Sahayak Committee meeting was organized at Balaji Nagar, where communities from Shanti nagar, Phule nagar, and Balaji nagar interacted with police officials. At the meeting, a number of amicable resolutions took place, with group discussions where grievances were voiced, disputes were settled and long-standing arguments were clarified.

R and R...

45 families who have been living for the last 25 years in the Harish bridge area whose houses were unexpectedly demolished because of city infrastructure projects will be relocated to Hadapsar, where the Pune Mahila Milan and the Alliance are constructing close to 400 houses for R and R. The Pimpri communities visited Hadapsar in March 2003 to understand the land-sharing housing scheme there.

Other activities ranging from enumerations of new communities, such as the survey of Gawlimatha slum in November 2003 and the construction of houses by the Corporation (who have recently availed of a loan of 3.9 crores from Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Agency (MHADA) under the Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana (VAMBAY) scheme for this project) for rehabilitation of communities from Milind Nagar, Adarsh Nagar, Khadi Mashil, Lakshman Nagar, Uttam Nagar and Vaishali Nagar in apartment buildings in Milind Nagar in houses of 225 sq ft area are on-going. All these settlements are on land belonging the Pimpri Municipal Corporation and have been there before 1.1.1995, making them eligible for rehabilitation. These 6 settlements will be the first of all the slums on municipal land in Pimpri to be rehabilitated by the Corporation.

Sanitation...

The Pimpri Commissioner has re-invited the Mahila Milan in the area to discuss the issue of community toilets, after their previous tender for toilets was cancelled.

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HOUSING

Housing Exhibitions in Kanpur

In February 2004, in a huge celebration attended by thousands of Mahila Milan members, the Kanpur federation inaugurated a plot of land that they successfully acquired from authorites to construct a house model that will form the basis for low-cost housing construction in Kanpur.

The story behind this success is a long and painful one. The Kanpur federation is one of the oldest federations in the country with over 10,000 women who are organised into Mahila Milan groups. In fact, the first house model exhibition outside of Mumbai was held in Kanpur. It was a very successful exhibition and impressed the local authorities so much that the federations were given official permission to construct the first batch of 50 houses. Unfortunately, before work could actually begin, the officer in charge was transferred and the entire project was cancelled. Years of work were suddenly threatened.

For the last few years, federations have been working hard to revive the enthusiasm of disappointed communities, mobilise more support, hold discussions on securing land from local authorities and begin planning for another two housing exhibitions. The celebration in 2004 marks a new phase for this federation and an expression of the confidence and optimism that communities have in this process to acquire long-awaited and affordable houses.

Setting Precedents in Orissa

For the very first time in the history of Orissa, poor families will be accessing a government scheme - known as the Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana - to finally build the homes they have dreamed about! This housing subsidy is a government programme where central and state authorities share a Rs. 40,000 contribution for low-cost housing.

This comes at the end of a three-year long process of negotiating with local authorities to demand this subsidy, expanding federation activity and support, and organising, planning and experimenting with various housing materials, models and costing options. Last year, federation leaders built three house models in Bhubaneshwar, Puri as well as Cuttack so that communities living in the area could visit, examine and then decide which design they liked best and could afford.

The idea is that this first set of houses will lay the ground for the scaling up of this programme across the entire state. As these federation members, with the support of the Orissa federation, build their houses, other communities in the region will visit them to learn about their experiences and return to their area and begin the process of applying for this subsidy.

Three settlements of Rasulgarh in Bhubaneshwar, Mundashahi in Cuttack and Baljihara in Paradeep have been chosen to begin construction and those families that have been involved in the process from the beginning and have saved enough money to contribute a small downpayment will be the first recipients of this subsidy.

Moving from Evictions to Negotiations

Federations in Mysore and Pondicherry recently managed to successfully stall the evictions of nearly 100 families and instead, worked with the local authorities to explore other housing solutions.

Earlier this year, the Karnataka Slum Clearance Board issued an eviction notice to the residents of Gandhi Nagar slum in Mysore. Eager to ensure a peaceful resettlement option, the federation immediately carried out a slum and household survey, identified the needs and abilities of the residents and approached the Board for negotiations. The KSCB responded positively and offered residents alternate accommodation, with the condition that they contribute an initial downpayment of pay Rs.5000 for this. Since one of the key tenets of the federation is to begin saving for housing even before communities have land, all the residents of Gandhi Nagar already had about Rs.2000 saved in their Mahila Milan accounts, and they took federation loans for the remaining amount. They are now in the midst of moving their belongings and setting up their new homes, which is, more importantly, legally in their names!

A similar story comes from Swamipillaikuppam slum in Pondicherry. When fifty families were faced with eviction without any compensation because of a road-widening project, the federation negotiated for land on their behalf. In fact, when the federation showed -- through the detailed survey information that they had collected - that these families had been living in this area for the last decade, even though they had rented their homes and did not legally own them, and that all of them had been saving money towards eventually owning their homes, local authorities softened their stance. The dialogue was so successful that they even agreed to provide them land for free. Currently, the Pondicherry federation is exploring how to access state and central government housing subsidies so that these families can be financially supported to build their homes at this new site.

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SANITATION

Pune: The Battle of the Last Hundred Blocks

However much the rest of the country looks to Pune as a model for city-wide sanitation and public-private partnerships, the local situation still remains hostile to communities leading the way. The last 100 toilet blocks to be built by the Pune Municipality in its drive to provide sanitation to all in the city's slums became a virtual battleground, with the lower municipal bureaucracy and the contractors pitted against the Pune Mahila Milan, who wanted to participate in the bid to build and maintain these toilet blocks.

To understand why the Alliance's involvement is so strongly resisted in construction projects, one needs to understand that unlike in other municipal contracts, when the Alliance takes on construction, all the money does actually go towards construction and what remains goes towards training and supervising the construction of the toilets. This does not allow for the 'cut-taking' system that is normally worked out between contractors and the lower municipal bureaucracy to flourish.

On two separate occasions, attempts were made to obstruct Pune's Mahila Milan from applying for the tender for these toilet blocks. The first time, the bank branch where the bid finance had to be paid was closed before the announced time of 5 pm. In the face of this gross violation of procurement procedures, SPARC and SSNS (the Alliance's section 25 construction company) successfully managed to get the tender cancelled.

In early March 2004, the tender for the construction of the last phase of toilet blocks was announced once more. The Mahila Milan women, bidding through SSNS, were physically barred from submitting their tender papers, by other contractors who threatened, "If you go in we will break your legs!" The distraught group, who phoned the Mumbai NSDF, were advised to file a police complaint, while the Pune Municipal Commissioner was alerted to sort out the crisis.

That evening, the very same contractors were singing a different tune: "Let's form a ring," they suggested. By 'ring' they meant a group which would divide the contract between the members, while hiking up the costs by 20 per cent so as to give 'helpful' municipal functionaries their 'due' share and rake in larger profits.

Mahila Milan leaders firmly declined to take part in such a 'ring'. Brushing their stand aside, the contractors decided to take their offer to a higher level, namely, the NSDF. They of course, even raised the amounts - but Jockin turned them down.

On Monday, 8th March 2004, Mahila Milan applied for all 99 toilets to discover, two days later, that a contract for 24 toilets had been allotted to them. What's more, the Municipality saved 20 million rupees in the process, because the rates had been significantly lowered due to Mahila Milan's participation in the bidding process. A suitable victory indeed for the Mahilas on Women's Day! The moral of the story is that unless local initiatives - like the Mahila Milan in Pune - have support and back up, threats emanating from within and outside the municipality will stifle innovators and innovation.

Doing groundwork in Ahmedabad

When Trupti from Ahemdabad got up to speak at the National Convention in September 2003 about federation activities in her city, everyone was impressed not just by her youth but also her confidence. And as she talked of the work that leaders like her were doing - encouraging communities to get involved in savings and credit activities, doing detailed slum and household enumerations, involving and mobilising settlements and having regular exchanges with Mumbai leaders - there was no doubt that more and more poor communities in Ahmedabad are getting deeply involved in the federation. "We have a daily turnover of Rs. 25,000 and have 4 lakhs saved in the bank," she said proudly. "What we really want to work on is community sanitation. We want to build toilets."

To build toilets is hard work. It requires organised and committed communities, strong Mahila Milan and federation leadership, and the ability to negotiate with local authorities and withstand all the pressures that the politics of toilets involves.

And, through regular and indepth exchanges, this is exactly what Mumbai federation leaders are supporting. The focus of these meetings is mentor, guide and assist local federations to build their capacities so that they can, themselves, begin the dialogue for community sanitation in the city of Ahmedabad.

"We advised federation leaders to tell the authorities that if you don't have the full amount, give us half. We'll contribute the rest, " says one of the core leaders who recently returned from an exchange. "When they see what we produce, they will see that it is in their political interest to build toilets for slum dwellers! And then they start asking you for help to build toilets!"

Presently, leaders have identified two areas. The first is Anwar Nagar slum, which is on the banks of the Sabarmati river and home to thousands of families without access to a single toilet. The reason this site was chosen is both obvious and yet strategic. A river widening project threatens the hundreds of residents in this neighbourhood with eviction. Local federation leaders have managed to stay this demolition and feel that building a toilet here will further ensure their safety. In fact, this is often the case - community-toilets are the first step towards negotiating for land tenure. In another area - Nagori Kabarasthan - the federation will demolish and rebuild a community toilet which is in complete disrepair and hand it over to the local Mahila Milan. In fact, this is the slum which hosts the main federation centre, and therefore leaders feel that it is an important location for such an initiative. Since different communities visit this Area Resource Centre on a daily basis, slum dwellers will be able to visit, learn from and take this model back to their settlements and authorities.

Scaling up our Sanitation Agenda: From Pune to Pondicherry

In 2000, the NSDF and Mahila Milan built 2000 community toilet seats in the city of Pune. Inspired by this success, local authorities, government officials and poor communities from across the country and world, visited Pune to see how they too could replicate this experience. Two years later, federations in Mumbai built 4000 community toilet seats.

In 2003, the Pondicherry Slum Dwellers Federation (PSDF), inspired after a visit to Mumbai, decided to take up sanitation on a large scale. But how were they to proceed? Community toilets were too expensive for a cash-strapped state government and a new concept that poor communities needed to get used to. So, after exploring the different sanitation options, the PSDF decided to initially focus on individual toilets. But, again, the problem of payment came up. Most of the PSDF members belonged to communities that could not afford to pay more than half the required amount. So the next step was to approach local authorities and convince them to provide a subsidy for the remaining half. After a number of meetings with PSDF and communities, the government agreed, and the first ever such programme in the state was launched. There was a lot of celebration and felicitations around this event as officials were invited to hand out the subsidies and loans to the first batch of 46 families who benefited from this scheme. In fact, this partnership with the state and communities has proved to be so successful that the PSDF has even been negotiating with authorities to contribute towards the construction of a 10-seater community toilet block in a slum where the density makes it impossible for individual toilet construction. And influenced by the federation model of community managed and maintained toilets, the PSDF has even mooted construction space to rent out shops on the ground floor of the toilet so that the revenue generated will support the costs of running this toilet. And the word is that if the community manages to raise half the construction cost, the government will contribute the remainder! This is really a long way from the rigid stance the authorities had earlier taken about not being able to contribute anything at all!

Trichy and Theni, initially sceptical about such schemes being successful in their cities, were convinced once they actually visited the toilet construction sites and spoke to communities about this programme. This concept of cheap individual toilets where land is available as a first step to community-toilet blocks is spreading all over the state and both authorities and communities are willing to share the responsibility for slum sanitation. When initiatives are truly rooted in the grassroots experience, the distance between Pune and Pondicherry is easily breached!

Unexpected Opportunities produce unexpected leaders: the case of Pallivasal street in Theni

Another example of communities exhibiting their sanitation models and solutions comes from the city of Theni, and particularly, the community from Pallivasal Street Slum.

About 60 families who belong to this cobbler community have been living in this slum and have been members of the federation for the last 4 years. Although initially they were reluctant entrants into the federation process, they did maintain savings and credit accounts. However, more enthusiastic leaders from other settlements as well as the national leadership was keen to include them in mobilising activities and would regularly visit this slum.

In 2001, a community toilet - the first in the area - was built by the municipality close to this slum. Federation leaders keen that this toilet should not follow the traditional path of quickly falling into disrepair, and encouraged the Pallivasal members to negotiate with local authorities to take over the maintenance of this toilet. Local Mahila Milan leaders learned about toilet maintenance, repair and management from more experienced federation leaders and excitedly took up the project. What emerged was an immensely successful programme and the toilet soon became a model in cleanliness which made both the municipality as well the community proud! Suddenly, from being unenthusiastic participants in the federation, this community became a showcase of successful partnerships between the poor and the city, and leaders have begun to play a very active part in sharing their experience with other settlements in other parts of the city and even travelling to other cities to train more women in this exercise. Even local government officials have come to visit, see and discuss this system with the local Mahila Milan in this slum.

On the basis of this community-management success, in mid 2003, local authorities agreed to hand over another 4 toilet blocks to Mahila Milans in other slums in Theni.

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RESETTLEMENT AND REHABILITATION

3000 families to move

Widening the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road, which is part of MUTP II, involves acquiring nearly 12,000 sq. mts of land from the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) where 3000 slum households or 15,000 people currently reside.

The Alliance is in charge of the survey, the relocation and rehabilitation for a project that affects 10 slums and 3294 structures. Although the survey and enumeration process started in the late 1990s, the alignment of the link road kept changing. Therefore surveys of the affected households had to be redone. In March 2003, the Alliance submitted the re-worked Baseline Socio-Economic Survey (BSES) of the slums to the MMRDA officials. This relocation project is now ongoing and only now the alignment of the link road has been finalised.

20,000 families gear up to move from the pavement!

Hamidbhai, a member of the Pavement Dwellers Federation in Mumbai, has this story to tell. In 1997, when the Bombay Municipal Corporation wanted to demolish their houses along the pavements in Wadala, he and other members of the Federation asked for just one hour: "Within that hour, we went to the Byculla office (headquarters for the Federation leadership), got a list of all the legal pavement dwellings on that particular street, and showed it to the BMC." He adds proudly, "no demolitions took place that day!"

Since 1985, the Alliance of SPARC-NSDF-MM has been collecting detailed household and area-wise information on the 20,000 plus households that make up the 300 pavement settlements in the 21 wards of Mumbai. 1985 was the year when SPARC conducted its first survey of pavement dwellers, 'We the Invisible', which demonstrated how valuable settlement and household level information could be collected and managed by communities. This survey also established how communities could use this information as a tool for negotiations with the state to acquire land, housing and infrastructure facilities.

The Pavement Dwellers Federation was initiated in 1987 by pavement communities in Byculla. This federation seeks to prepare all pavement dwellers in Mumbai to relocate to permanent secure homes. In fact the strategy of a community-driven relocation process used by the Alliance for the MUTP and MUIP emerged from the early deliberations of these pavement dwellers, especially women, who all strongly supported a move from the pavement into secure homes. The Mumbai Pavement Dwellers Federation is a part of National Slum Dwellers Federation.

It selects three representatives per 100 households as central leaders of their community. They are given identity cards and are prepared to take on negotiations with the BMC in case of demolition threats. They are also focal points of responsibility and are accountable to their communities for the Alliance's work.

"However," declares one of the leaders, "it's really difficult. People have been given so many empty promises by politicians that they don't trust us in the beginning. But we keep going back; keep talking about what we are doing, till slowly a couple of people get convinced. Seeing them join up, others follow." This is the way the Pavement Dwellers Federation in Mumbai has grown to its present strength.

Some pavement communities have their own detailed registers. For instance, Dadar's Shri Sai Krupa Zopadpatti Sangh has 56 households. Their register includes a picture of one member (or couple) from each household and also gives details of all other members. A list of Federation leaders is also circulated within the community so that the people know whom to approach for help.

There is now an ongoing discussion with the Maharashtra government to relocate pavement settlements as part of a larger project to improve the city's infrastructure and to upgrade how its citizens live. The Alliance's experiences with regard to relocation for the last 20 years have enabled it to discuss designing and implementing these projects today with policy makers. As a first of hopefully many more such projects, the Alliance's oldest constituency, 327 pavement families from Byculla are designing their own homes in Milan Nagar, Mankhurd, and should move there by the end of this year.

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PRECEDENT SETTING

Innovative Partnerships: Ensuring Minimum Sanitation throughout the entire country

In an innovative partnership, the Alliance has teamed up with the WSP-SA (Water & Sanitation Program, South Asia of the World Bank) to promote universal sanitation in Indian cities. This partnership encompasses a range of activities, from offering ideas to cities on sanitation, to organizing sanitation facilities itself to training communities to handle operations and maintenance of toilet blocks.

With WSP-SA working with various state governments for reform in the water and sanitation sector and the Alliance working to ensure sanitation for all in slums, this linkage seeks to create a handshake between state policy and city-level delivery of these services.

SPARC has recently entered into an MOU with ASCI, the Administrative Staff College of India, based in Hyderabad and YASHADA, the Yeshwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration, based in Pune, headed currently by Mr. Ratnakar Gaikwad. Both these organizations are research and training institutes and have a large base among municipal and state government authorities across the country. The MOU between SPARC, ASCI and YASHADA brings together the unique strengths of each organization to tackle the problem of achieving universal sanitation facilities in Indian cities. The terms of reference of this MOU extend not just to exposing other cities to the Pune and Mumbai city-wide sanitation models, but also to any hand-holding that cities who want to tackle sanitation issues need, including assistance with pilot projects, training of local counterparts, etc.

On 19th and 20th March 2004, the recently established partnership, with the backing of the WSP-SA hosted a national-level workshop, inviting concerned officials from Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, state governments, city officials, donors and NGO-CBO groups to look at what was achieved in Pune, and to begin exploring this model of working together for universal sanitation.

At the workshop, the most powerful insights were that:

-- Policy makers often talked about sanitation management but never about TOILETS!

-- The inability to create partnerships with communities reduced off take of even the available meager funds for sanitation.

-- Sanitation is not seen as a 'smart and spectacular' project for city managers and making it so is a part of this partnership's advocacy process.

-- Unless change makers in all sectors champion the cause of universal access to sanitation, this process will not scale up to cities across the country

Cleaning up the Dirt!

In Mumbai..

In early 2000, the Bombay Municipal Corporation set up a very innovative scheme to try and address garbage pile-ups and health crises in slums. Called the Dattak Vasti Yojana, which means Slum Adoption Scheme, this programme was meant to financially support slum communities to form garbage committees which would hire labourers to clean their areas.

Unfortunately, as is often the case, good schemes fail to meet their targets when there is little knowledge about their systems of access and implementation. Ultimately, it is only when a critical mass of people are made aware of such schemes that they can actually be drawn upon in a transparent way where leaders as well as authorities are held accountable for their actions. What tended to happen was that although the scheme provided a certain salary for one labourer per thousand households, local officials together with the few slum dwellers who were actually aware of this programme, hired an inadequate number of labourers and pocketed the remaining amount.

Last year, the NSDF decided to take up this programme in the transit camps of Mankhurd and Wadala Kokri Agar, which housed a total of nearly 30,000 people who had been resettled as part of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project. In fact, garbage committees comprising local boys and girls had already been organised and had been regularly cleaning the area since the resettlement occurred in 2000 and all residents contributed towards their salaries and equipment. The local NSDF thought - why not access the government scheme that's meant to do exactly this?

Not everyone was happy about the entrance of the NSDF because it is well known that the federation has a strict policy against bribes. In fact, the NSDF's proposal to take advantage of this scheme met a very interesting obstacle. Because these slum dwellers - who originally lived along the railway tracks - were now living in transit accommodation about to be moved into permanent accomodation, they did not qualify as slum dwellers! After many meetings, however, the proposal was accepted as a special case.

Federation leaders now visit different communities, discussing this scheme and encourage leadership to get involved. As the number of communities demanding and getting involved in this garbage-cleaning programme is growing, the opportunities for corruption and money making are shrinking. Cleaning up the dirt, of various kinds, is fast spreading through the slums of Mumbai!

And Vellore...

A similar story comes from Vellore. Until 2001, although there was a government scheme to build drains in slums, people in these areas never benefited because nobody ever told them about its existence! When local authorities asked them to sign papers saying that money had been released for their communities, they did so without questioning what they were doing. It was only in 2001, when Mahila Milan members from an area called Anna Nagar, constructed a drain in their area with federation money. This sparked off very interesting repercussions. Leaders from neighbouring slums came to enquire how they had managed to get this drain built and when they realised that they had been signing off drain funds without their slums getting any work done on the ground, they refused to do this anymore. In fact, the federation even had some tussles with local politicians over this issue! What resulted was that, for the first time, people started drawing on this scheme. Many settlements soon got drains.

And now, even though the money comes from the government as it is meant to, these drains have come to be popularly known as "Mahila Milan drains".

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SLUM/SHACK DWELLERS INTERNATIONAL

SDI Board meeting in Mumbai

From Feb 28 - March 2, about 54 members of the Slum Dwellers International along with their NGO partners met in Mumbai for their routine half-yearly Board Meeting. They had intense discussions on their work thus far, their various strategies, their plans for the future and how they intended to engage with their NGO friends, their governments, their financial institutions and other stakeholders. Community leaders from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Cambodia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, India and Kenya had held many in-depth discussions on these topics - both with and separately from their NGO partners.

Detailed audio-visual documentation on this event is currently being developed.

Stories from Nepal

Nepal was particularly excited to take part in the Slum/Shack Dweller International Board meeting conversations because they had a very interesting story to share. Only recently, the government had promised to stop all evictions and demolitions nation-wide and set up a country-wide slum upgrading and land tenure policy. It was a tremendous victory which had come as the result of a lot of hard work and effort. And the entire federation was poised to scale-up its work on housing and infrastructure in an entirely unprecedented way. In fact, they had even selected a member of their federation to join the SDI board.

On 5th March, while the rest of the group went to visit community toilets in the city of Pune, the Nepal team was preparing to go home, charged with everything they had heard and learnt and begin its work. But just before they left, they sat with the SPARC team for about an hour and talked to us about the work that had precipitated the Urban Poor Fund in their country.

Below is extracts from the conversation:

Bimala: I live in Ramhiti basti which has about 129 households. For about the last 4 years we've had savings groups, but then in 1999, I went with some leaders to Cambodia to attend a big meeting. It was incredible because I saw that young women from the age of 12 right to the age of 80 took part in large numbers. I thought about how women in my area were scared to come out of their homes and I thought when I go back to Nepal, I have to start a women's organisation like this one. Actually, on my way back to Nepal, I stopped in Bangkok to go to the ACHR office. There I met this man called Morris and he asked me how much time I would need to start the women's organisation once I returned. I thought about it and I said I would need three months. But when I got back I was so full of the idea that I visited 22 communities to talk about what I had seen and experienced and within one month we had formed a 11 member committee and started an organisation called Mahila Ekta Samaj. It took some more time to get it registered as a separate organisation, but we managed to get women interested and active within a month! Actually one of the things we also discussed was that it was women who would be able to bring this change because people and governments are more sympathetic to women, so it just made more sense for them to get organised.

One big challenge for us was when we decided to get registered. Actually we had a lot of meetings to decide this. But once we said yes, we will get registered, it was not so easy. I don't think we realised how much work it would involve and because we had to come up with so many things clearly like what we wanted to do and how to do it. The thing is that since we had never walked down this path, because we had never decided to take on all these issues, we never knew what the obstacles and problems would be. But once we decided to walk down this path, it was only then that we realised how much work we had taken on, and how difficult the journey ahead was. We saw we had no toilets, no water, no houses, no schools, no balwadis..nothing! There was so much to do.

In my basti, the first thing we decided to work on was water. In fact, the men in the area said, if you women get us water then we will cut off our ears, our necks! Nobody believed that we would be able to do anything. The thing was that for over 100 houses, we only had some two or three handpumps. There was this huge boring factory of the Nepal Water Supply Corporation right next to us which used to supply water to the whole city of Kathmandu. We were really worried that these machines would suck all the water out and we would be left with nothing. So we started going to the local authorities to ask for water. It took two years of constant meetings, constant going to the local authorities that they finally agreed to give us two tanks which had a capacity of 10,000 litres. We were really happy. But then, we saw that they built the tanks but didn't supply any water in these tanks! Again, we were forced to go the authorities and it took another 6 months before we were supplied with water from the factory. But again the authorities tried to take advantage of us - they only gave us water for two hours in the morning and another 2 hours in the evening. It was just not adequate. So finally, we had enough. We got 35 women from our area and together we went to the local office. We warned them that unless they treated us properly we would close the factory down. Only after this meeting did we get water. And this time it came for 22 hours a day. And everyone in the community was very happy.

But that was not the end of the water story. Once we got the water and the tanks, we faced another problem. Very often, drunken men would break the taps of the tanks at night. We ended up repairing these taps on such a regular basis that we decided we had to do something about this problem. We thought, we might as well go to the heart of the matter and try and control alcoholism in our area. As usual, everybody told us that this was going to be completely impossible. They said that drinking was part of our culture and that it could never be controlled. Our idea was that ok, we know we can't completely stop it, but it's better if we just try and restrict it. So a few of us women went to the local ward chairperson to tell them about our idea. They were really excited and wanted to support us, so they told us to go to the police station with this idea. When we went there, the police was also really supportive and they gave us I.D badges and told us that we had the authority to control this problem. The thing is that we knew that a few women would not be able to do anything alone, so we went back to our community, got 70 women together and went back to the police station, and gave all of them an I.D. badge. They were so excited with this idea that they even gave us all umbrellas and torches for the rainy nights! When we went back to our community, we told them that all liquor shops had to be closed from 7 in the evening to 6 in the morning and we showed them our badges. We even formed patrol groups of 10 women each and we would go on rounds at 11 am, midnight and 1 a.m. Of course in the beginning, we faced a lot of opposition and criticism. But one time, when we reported a shop that remained open to the police, the officers came, raided the shop and poured out all the liquor. That was the first and last incident of this kind. After that, everyone started to follow our rules, and the alcoholism was really controlled. What was funny was that it was not only the women in our community that was really happy, even the neighbouring rich communities were appreciative of our efforts. I think this is because all the drunk men used to cause a lot of problems and make a lot of noise in the area. So when this went down, the people in the buildings next to us came and told us how happy they were, and that as part of their contribution they would pay for the batteries in our torches from then on.

Till today - one year later - these patrols continue. Lots of surrounding bastis have also come to us for help and we always take them to the police station to help them get I.D. badges. Sometimes it works to control the problem, but sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the community. But what's important is that we have now made it part of the Mahila Ekta Samaj policy - all communities that are part of our network are told about this experience.

Prakash: I'm from Bishal Nagar and have been part of the federation for about 2 years now. The federation is in about 75 districts in Nepal and we are really involved in preventing demolitions. I remember one instance in a community, when some local goons demolished this one person's house. So that person came and complained to the local federation. We went to the goons and had a long talk with them - we told them, it's government's land, why have you done this here? In fact, we managed to convince them to rebuild on the land, and actually, the new house turned out to be slightly nicer than the original place!

I remember another eviction negotiation we participated in. About one year ago, some 1000 families were evicted from this national park in Western Nepal. The people really had no place to go and they started living at the boundary of this park. When the federation read about this eviction in the papers, we immediately formed a team of leader and went there. We visited the communities and quickly organised them. Then, together with their new leaders, we had a press conference in Khatmandu and talked about how the government should not be doing such things. We also went to the forestry ministry in the area as well as the main Ministry in the capital with our team and the local leaders and talked to them. Although there has been no solution so far to this situation, the ministry has agreed not to evict these people again until a proper alternative is found.

About 2 years ago, we read about how 170 families that lived in an area in Pokra were about to be evicted because the City Development Committee (CDC) wanted to build a bus station on that land. So a team of 5 people from our Mahila Ekta Samaj and federation quickly rushed to the area and in fact, we began to live in this community. In the meantime, we organised people and together went to the Deputy Mayor's office. In fact, just a month before that the Deputy Mayor of Pokra had visited Bangkok along with our team to see the work that ACHR was doing on low-income housing. So we knew him very well. He quickly organised and chaired a meeting between our team and the local municipality, which was also very supportive of us, along with the CDC. Actually the municipality and the City Development Committee in the urban areas do not coordinate because the CDC is under the Housing Ministry in the capital. We had lots of discussions and for now the eviction has been stayed and we are, together, looking for alternative options.

Actually in Khatmandu, about 2 years ago, the Mayor signed an agreement that the city would not conduct any evictions or demolitions without first consulting the federation.

Another thing that the federation does is organise the youth in their communities. You see, lots of young people are really embarrassed to be living in huts. So we talk to them and tell them that they must not hide from this fact. If they want to change their situation, they must openly talk about it and think about how they can make a difference. We have a network called Child Group Network and it's for girls and boys from around 17 - 20 who are members of the federation.

Stories from Zimbabwe

At a time when the country is being rocked by steep inflation, savings groups have never done better in Zimbabwe. Despite the fact that the value of savings money depreciates drastically everyday, Zimbabwean Federation member have not stopped saving. Instead, this has motivated them to save even more. Federation leaders, Sazini Ndlovu and Sheila Magare and NGO member, Beth Biti from Dialogue on Shelter at the SDI meet in March 2004, spoke to Aditi Thorat, SPARC about this curious savings paradox in Zimbabwe and about land, housing and health issues and their 5th year anniversary celebrations!

Savings Paradox

“The formal financial system in Zimbabwe has completely failed the poor”, Beth, says. “Informal savings schemes represent one of the only ways in which the poor can still participate in a financial process”, she continues. “Moreover, with the help of the Federation, members are now considering turning their savings into assets like land and property, the value of which will remain fairly stable, unlike their currency”.

Sazini, narrates a fascinating story: “Federation members are now thinking of buying a hardware store with their savings money- this store will be a community asset, far more secure than money in savings schemes, and it will also be able to satisfy income generation needs of the Federation members, through sale and purchase of construction and other materials”.

Poor communities from Zimbabwe are thus exploring ways in which they can find safe parking spaces for their hand-earned savings- and for ways in which these assets can also help create opportunities for employment. They are actively engaged in exploring solutions to stem their poverty- a promising start in bleak times for a people centered development process. In addition, because of the SDI network, international grant money coming into in Zimbabwe, is kept with another Federation, say in South Africa and the Zimbabwean Federations and NGO draw down amounts as and when they require. This prevents the depreciation in the value of international donor funds.

Land, Housing and Negotiations with the State

The politics of land often ensures that poor communities are ignored in the redistribution process.

“The issue of land in Zimbabwe is very tough”, Sazini, says with a shrug. “Populist governments like Mugabe’s might make a call for farmland redistribution, but the reality is much harsher”. The politics of land often ensures that poor communities are ignored in the redistribution process. Also, with urban centres becoming more and more pressured with rising populations and sparse resources, land becomes an even more contested issue. Sazini says, “The Zimbabwean Federations have been in ongoing dialogue with local authorities and government officials regarding acquisition of land on which to build their houses or the direct acquisition of housing units themselves. So far we have succeeded in acquiring 150 housing units in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, which we are further subdividing to spread the benefits across a larger number of Federation members. These housing units are basic structures, which members will improve upon depending on their means and capacities”.

But, Federations faces a number of challenges in negotiating with government officials. Sazini adds, “We are accused of being “political parties”, just because we talk to the government! At a meeting at Rusape, Zimbabwe, we were even accused by other political parties of working for the Church!” She adds, “Being a part of SDI helps us mitigate some of these accusations.”With elections coming up next year, the Federation faces a further challenge with regard to ensuring that promises made by the government are honoured. They must do this without allowing political processes to co-opt them into unfavourable arrangements

Anniversary Celebs!

In December 2003, the Zimbabwean Federation celebrated its 5th anniversary with much energy and vigour.

SDI partners from all over the world were invited, as were ministers and government officials from Zimbabwe. Sheila Magare, Federation leader says, “Celebrations are not just times of fun, but important ways in which Federations can learn to work together”.

She adds, “Working as a team was a good weapon. After the public meeting, along with SDI leader A. Jockin from India, the Zimbabwe Federation spoke to the Secretary to Government and the Chief Minister, who promised the Zimbabwean Federation 5 million dollars to build houses.”

She ends, “What remains now is for the money to actually materialise! Like with governments world-over, this is not easy, and the challenge for us is to now formulate a proposal for this purpose and ensure that we receive this money from our government. “

Health- “Getting on the Bus!”

Sheila Magare, Zimbabwe Federation leader explains that hunger, poverty, AIDS and high inflation have continuously plagued her country. As always the health of the poor is most affected. “People are dying, they are getting on the bus," she says baldly. However, she adds, “Zimbabwean federations are now developing their own programmes to address their health concerns. Earlier, mobile clinics would visit them occasionally, providing no real support for their needs. Today, communities are supporting each other to grow medicinal herbs and to provide informal care and treatment for each other”.

At the SDI meet in March 2004, the Zimbabwean Federation made a request for SDI funds to support and expand their existing health programmes.

From Mumbai to Nairobi: How SDI is supporting the Kenyan federation develop a resettlement plan for 10,000 households in Nairobi

Sheela Patel, the Director of SPARC, writes:

For those who don't know the Shack Dwellers International, or SDI, it's a network of community federations of the urban poor across the developing world. These federations support micro communities to work together, and while learning from each other's activities, insights and knowledge, seek to negotiate with city officials and governments to improve their lives. Together, they produce solutions that work for their communities and also towards the larger benefit of the city. This international grassroots network's signature advocacy process is to use the solutions developed by communities and federations in one part of the world to engage the government and other state institutions in another country. When the need arises, the strategy is to invite the officials of one country to visit and see for themselves the federation process in the other and understand the changes that have emerged there.

This story also attempts to weave together a number of global events and situations that have taken place recently. Take for instance the MDGs or the Millennium Development Goals. There are various task forces set up by the United Nations to help fulfill the commitments of the Millennium Declaration, 2000 that addresses issues of poverty that all nations have signed on. Several task forces were set up. One of these task forces is on addressing issues of urban poverty, seeking to improve the lives of a 100 million slum dwellers by 2010. Many of us from SDI are on that task force, and in November 2004, we had a meeting in Nairobi where we discussed these issues and as part of our learning and exposure trips, we visited the slums of Nairobi.

I went to Kibera, one of the largest informal settlements in Nairobi. While I was there, I saw that a railway line passed through that slum, and that shops and dwellings that hugged the tracks were constantly being demolished, only to be rebuilt again. Although the issue of slums along the railway tracks was not the focus of my visit, I was struck by the similarity of the situation in Mumbai where there are also settlements along the railway tracks and until 5 years ago we had faced the same problems as Kibera. I suggested to the Pamoja Trust and the Mungano, our counterparts of SPARC and NSDF in Kenya, that, as members of SDI, we would support them to talk to their railway authorities and to bring their communities and their government officials to see what we were doing in India.

Then in February 2004, the demolitions by the railways in Kibera, Nairobi began. While local communities were in distress and anti-eviction watch-dogs began to fill cyberspace with news of the doom facing these communities, the Mungano and Pamoja Trust went, as suggested, to the railway authorities to consider a new way of dealing with this process. To explore working together with the poor to solve the problem so the poor get alternative housing and the city gets an unclogged area around the railway track.

The story of what had happened in Mumbai was told to the Kenyan railways and the government. Of how there were settlements 3 feet away from the track, and that, over 3 years, 120 km of track had been cleared up to 30 feet and that a wall has been built there preventing new slums from coming up. Also, more households are preparing to move for upgrading the railway tracks.

On 2nd April a team of 7 Kenyans came to Mumbai to see for themselves how this is being done and to meet with communities, the NSDF, Mahila Milan and SPARC, as also the railways and government officials who assisted this process. This will begin an exploration of how they will undertake a similar partnership in Nairobi.

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