Women leaders wangle water taps, security in India’s slums.
AHMEDABAD, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Hansaben Rasid knows what it is like to live without a water tap or a toilet of her own, constantly fearful of being evicted by city officials keen on tearing down illegal settlements like hers in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad.
Jadibanagar, with 108 homes, is one of more than 50 slums in Ahmedabad which have been upgraded by Parivartan – meaning "change" – a program that involves city officials, slum dwellers, a developer and a non-profit organization.
Instead, they favor upgrading of their slums or redevelopment.
Homes in Jadibanagar slum, where a woman community leader trained by a local non-profit has overseen the upgrade of the settlement with water taps, toilets and paved lanes, and with a guarantee of no evictions for 10 years in Ahmedabad, India.
Thomson Reuters Foundation/Rina Chandran Earlier this month, officials in the eastern state of Odisha said they will give land rights to slum dwellers in small towns and property rights to those in city settlements in a "historic" step that will benefit tens of thousands.
"These homes are all illegal, but that doesn’t mean the people cannot live decently," said Bhonsale.
But with an upgrade, the women make the decision very quickly by themselves," she said.
Homes in Jadibanagar slum, where a woman community leader trained by a local non-profit has overseen the upgrade of the settlement with water taps, toilets and paved lanes, and with a guarantee of no evictions for 10 years in Ahmedabad, India.
Thomson Reuters Foundation/Rina Chandran Elsewhere, in Delhi’s Savda Ghevra slum resettlement colony where about 30,000 people live, non-profit Marg taught women residents to demand their legal right to water, sanitation and transport.