20091021 - First visit to slum

Today we went with Vishnu (Ashoka) on a short tour of Ahmedabad. We went to visit the train station as the train is an important aspect of India and Indian life.
For the first time in India we were transported in a car in stead of a auto rickshaw. Traffic is chaotic over here and you encounter the strangest objects on the street, such as:
- cows
- (painted) camel and wagon
- (painted) elephant
- horse and wagon
- auto rickshaw
- hand cart
I will place a short video on Yahoo soon, but I have to download software for that first and find out how that works.

After lunch we went to a slum, for the first time. It was truly a great experience! People were very friendly and welcoming. They all wanted to be in the picture; especially the children. Everywhere we went, a group of children followed us. We first went to the SAATH Urban Resource Center. Ashoka (the NGO I work for) works closely together with SAATH. For more information, see http://www.saathurc.org/English/.

SAATH has an office that functions as an information hub in the slum. Slum dwellers (=people living in a slum) pay for services and/or can become a member.


In Ahmedabad there are 10 slums grouped by e.g. religion, job type, income level. The slum we visited today was a muslim slum.

I always thought that most people living in a slum were unemployed and pennyless. That is a widespread misconception. People living in slums have normal day jobs (e.g. auto rickshaw driver, work at the train station, etc.) and some money to spend. However, as they do not own the land they live on, they do not qualify for a mortage so they cannot buy a house. Also it is difficult for them to get loans. Therefore, parties as SAATH and SEWA provide micro-financing services for these groups of people.

SAATH set up (and subsidises) a day care facility in the slum. When we were invited for tea in this day care facility, children were curiously looking through the windows at us.


Walking around in the slum was really interesting. The colours are overwhelming. And basically every picture you take is a very special picture. I have added a few pictures to this blog. More pictures can be viewed on Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.nl/Mapje.van.Ginkel/IBMCSCRangoliTeamAhmedabad?authkey=Gv1sRgCLPci5aIwvCvygE&feat=directlink#