Projects - Fida International

Mumbai Slum Community Development Project

A maze of houses built with grey sheets of corrugated tin, grimy blue tarpaulin, wire netting and, occasionally, concrete; each house separated from the next by the narrowest of gaps; open drains that run through where the children play—this is the landscape of a typical Mumbai slum. Slums or squatter settlements exist almost everywhere in Mumbai, beside railway tracks, garbage landfills, water canals, and most of them lack basic facilities. Half of the city’s population lives crowded together in these shanty hovels. They are the backbone of the city’s economy: its construction workers, drivers, household servants, garage mechanics, shop-keepers, carpenters, factory labourers, call center workers and priests. The squalor of their living conditions is often discussed, their human face seldom recognized. The Mumbai Slum Community Development Project works with the people who live in slum areas, helping them address problems at the individual level such as education, livelihood and disease prevention and training them to help their communities stay cleaner, happier and more peaceful. Mumbai’s slums, or zopadpattis as they are called locally, have existed for as long as anyone can remember. More than half of the city’s population now lives in slums, according to the World Bank, and the number continues to grow. The people in these areas live in tiny, airless rooms with little access to basic facilities such as clean water, adequate waste disposal, proper toilets and sewage disposal facilities. Entire families sleep, play and live in cramped rooms, often cooking or playing on the road outside, near drains or railway tracks. Diseases find ample breeding ground and enteric and respiratory illnesses are devastatingly common. During the monsoons, entire slum areas are submerged in water and people lose their painstakingly-acquired possessions. Health, sanitation, education, livelihood, and good living habits are some of the aspects that the Mumbai Slum Community Development Project addresses. Initiated in the year 2002, it is run by the Good News Assemblies of God with the aim of improving the quality of life for people in slum communities. The project primarily focuses on women and children because, inevitably, they are at the bottom of this pyramid of deprivation. We equip women and young people with skills education to help them earn additional income and improve their standard of living. We also run nursery schools (balwadis) and sponsorship programs for the children to inculcate good habits and values from a young age. Last year, more than a hundred children benefitted in terms of education and health check-ups while about 700 people were provided with diagnostic services at medical camps. In many of the slums, health awareness and disease prevention programs have significantly lowered the disease rate. People are also imbibing more hygenic habits in terms of waste disposal and water storage. So far, we have been able to reach 750 families and transform their habits. In some areas, people have started using the garbage dump to dispose waste instead of throwing it outside their houses or dirtying the neighbourhood. In other areas, children have started staying cleaner and stopped using abusive language and violence. Currently, the project works in 11 slums across Mumbai and Thane. In keeping with our aim of making communities self-reliant, the project has facilitated the formation of committees at the community level in each slum. The community trainers are encouraged and morivated to take responsibility for the project and develop their own network of volunteers. Last year, 41 Community Health Educators (CHEs) were given comprehensive training through workshops, seminars and focused training sessions so that they can, in turn, visit homes in the slum and spread the awareness. Slum-dwellers who benefit from the project have also become active participants and promoters of the development process and are taking on the onus of bringing about change within their communities.