We are looking for funding for a project in Dharavi. We need your help! Please contact us if you can contribute or if you have any suggestions!!!

The Context:

Dharavi is usually described as the “largest slum” in Asia. Home to at least half a million people, it is one of the most diverse and culturally vibrant parts of Mumbai. About 95% of the residents of Dharavi belong to what are officially called dalits and ‘other backward castes’. This partly explains why the authorities have largely ignored their needs. Political parties and NGOs have been present in Dharavi for many years, providing support to many residents and speaking on their behalf. However, to this day, it is nearly impossible for individuals and grassroots groups of Dharavi to get heard. Mass media is generally sympathetic to the hardships endured by the residents, but again usually misrepresents Dharavi as an homogeneous community, when in fact it is composed of about 88 communities, each with their languages, practices and cultures.

One of the highest stresses faced by the residents of Dharavi today is uncertainty regarding their housing and workspaces. The Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), which is the government agency in overseeing slum redevelopment efforts in Mumbai, has divided Dharavi into 5 sectors and requested proposals from real estate investors from all over the world for each of these sectors. This project, known as the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP), requires developers to provide a 300 sqf flat to each family that can prove that it settled in Dharavi before the year 2000. In exchange for rehousing residents in new buildings, the builders get construction rights in Dharavi.

The DRP has been highly criticized by NGOs and independent experts, notably for leaving out of the plan hundreds of thousands of residents who cannot prove that they settled in Dharavi previous to 2000. Some experts have also pointed out that any plan that might increase the current population density of Dharavi was irresponsible, since the density levels are already unsustainable. In any case, the DRP is severly compromised by the current financial crisis, which has caused many of the bidders to withdraw or simply disappear.

Dharavi residents may be temporarily off the hook but that also means that Dharavi will also certainly fade away from the media and government’s limelight and go back to being what it always was, a shadow city. One of the reasons for the media frenzy that surrounded Dharavi is that it epitomizes the urban crisis that Mumbai, India and the world are facing as more and more people move to cities. Global economic recession will not stop rural immigrants from coming in mass to urban areas. In fact, as the crisis hits rural areas, it might well accelerate the influx and therefore the informal development of shelters on the city’s pavements, along the railways, and in the periphery.

The recent attacks in Mumbai will almost certainly translate into a renewed attention on security and a greater insularity of middle-class and upper class enclaves in a city where about 60% of the population is said to be living in slums. This deepening of the class divide will only isolate the poor majority further and exclude them from a process of development and globalization that has benefited many middle-class Indians.

The residents of Dharavi are not only aspiring to better living standards, they have also demonstrated extraordinary resilience and creativity in the face of social exclusion and economic hardship. Many commentators, including The Economist, have been impressed with the dynamism and entrepreneurialism displayed by Dharavites. Local industries, such as leather and embroidery, are even attracting the attention of shoppers and investors. Moreover, researchers, including Nokia’s R&D team and Microsoft Research India, who have performed market studies in Dharavi have noted the extremely high absorption of new technologies by the population. Every lane in Dharavi has a cell phone retailer, and cybercafes are flourishing.

The Urban Typhoon workshop, which took place in Dharavi in March 2008, and was supported by Asia Initiatives in Japan and PUKAR in Mumbai, clearly confirmed that residents are willing to be involved in the development process and have more than physical manpower to contribute. Foreign participants were utterly impressed with the positive attitude and great motivation displayed by local residents, as well as by  their genuine willingness to be part of the solution.

The Concept:

DOT stands for Dharavi.organic Technology Centre. It combines several initiatives taking place in Dharavi, including the PUKAR Youth Fellowship, the Urban Typhoon Workshop, and the dharavi.org platform. These initiatives are described in the last section of the proposal.

DOT is a space of self-expression for all residents of Dharavi. It aims at helping those who are willing to voice their opinions, ideas, visions, and plans out to the rest of the city and the rest of the world.

Objectives:

The DOT center will provide a space, tools and training in English, Marathi and Hindi for all those who want to use dharavi.org and access other websites.

Dharavi.org already serves as a link between people interested in researching Dharavi and local residents. DOT will now allow residents to reach out to people, community groups and organizations from around the world who are dealing with the same set of issues.

The Urban Typhoon workshop sparked the interest of Dharavi residents from various parts of the neighbourhoods. DOT will provide an infrastructure that will allow the multiplication of such initiatives. DOT will help connect Dharavi with students and schools of architecture, engineering, planning, and economics as well as social workers and generally with people from all walks of life who want to spend some time to help local projects in Dharavi. It will constitute a physical connection point for the outside world into Dharavi.

DOT will not only allow Dharavi residents to access the Web free of charge, it will also help them to use it to fulfil their needs and aspirations. It will for instance support local business initiatives and the pursuit of educational goals.

In addition, DOT will provide vocational training in hardware repair and software development to young people in Dharavi. It will then connect trainees to potential employers.

The space itself will have versatile usage and will be usable for different functions, such as parties, youth, women’s groups and various workshops and classes.

Partners:

PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research) is a NPO (Not-for-profit-organization) in Mumbai. It is a Research Collective that has an ongoing three-year-old research project with 40 groups all over the Mumbai Metropolitan Region involving 300 youth from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, as barefoot researchers.

Dharavi.organic is a multimedia open source Wiki website dedicated to Dharavi, one of the largest informal settlements in the world located in the heart of Mumbai. This is an URBZ project.

Urban Typhoon is a participatory design and planning workshop organized by a global network of urban researchers and practitioners. The first Urban Typhoon workshop was held in Tokyo, 2006, the second in Mumbai, 2008 and the next one will take place in Istanbul, 2009.