Mumbai - Day One: Dharavi slums

Banu sits opposite me cross legged on the floor of the living room of the one room dwelling. I call it a one room but it has an area used for cooking and washing and a sleeping shelf you can reach by the removable ladder. She is accompanied by a group of other Pavement dwellers, all women.

In fact most of my day is to be spent with the women of Mumbai's slums. The 'Mahila Milan' - 'Women Together' are a powerful force in these slum communities as both state and national government have come to recognise.

As Banu explains to me: "Yes Mahila Milan built the 20 seat community toilet blocks and we manage them within our own community". These blocks are clean and well managed by a caretaker elected and paid for by the slum dwellers organisation. This block replaces the Municipal block which is unusable. I know this is the case because I have just visited a block with Homeless International to see the type of results they are achieving on the ground by investing in local organisations.

I don't think many will have heard of De Bono but the thinking style is very similar. When the Municipal blocks we always filth, the smell appalling and the caretaking poorly done, the community took responsibility and designed a block with a caretakers house on the top of the block. The house goes with the job and the community selects the caretaker. The block is spotless and smells are absent. Now that is neat thinking!

These little changes are transforming the lives of thousands of slum and pavement dwellers across the world. Banu is, like the rest of "her sisterhood", illiterate, poor and living in a pavement shelter that is scheduled for demolition, but sitting here, shoeless, in this ten foot by ten foot home, I realise that it would be insulting to think of any of them as victims. They certainly don't see themselves this way, in reality they are a highly organise community of interests that have learned to use their network of connections to mobilise pavement and slum dwellers into action.

They first discovered their power when they organised passive resistance to the state when it moved to bring in demolition contractors to bulldoze slums built on illegally occupied land. Their initial forages into community politics were helped by an amazing man called Jockin Arputham, a slum dweller himself, Jockin helped organise slum dwellers into recognisable communities that could interact with government agencies.

Jockin is President of an organisation called National Slum Dwellers Organisation but in the 1980's Jocklin learnt about SPARC (Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres) an organisation established by Professional women who believed, with help, poor women could organise themselves and play a significant role in bettering the lives for slum dwellers. It was the coming together of SPARC,s director Sheela Patel, an educated upper middle class activist and Jocklin the street wise slum leader that really started the sparks to fly.

Mahila Milan was now energised but most importantly help was at hand to show them how to develop the skills and know how to be more effective. As Banu told me we started our own savings group. Every day our street leaders would start the savings run. They visited every house in the street and collected any surplus money. Maybe one rupee maybe more whatever could be spared, it is entered in the book and micro credit was in action. Soon loans were available to help with crisis situations and later for business 'start ups'.

It is banking, but not as we know it! The real other side effect is that this united the community of women and empowered them, not only within their own society but also within their own family structure. With growing confidence they are now able to engage with government and are now consulted in proposals to remove pavement dwellings and how resettlement will take place. They are actively involved in the design of their new homes and even manage the priority selection for resettlement.

Banu explains that Jocklin is joining us in the meeting and moments later he arrives. A diminutive, quiet spoken Indian he has an aura of real presence and is so at one with his community. I know that he is doing similar work in a range of countries across the world, despite diabetes and a bypass he is a powerhouse of energy. Homeless International explain the reason for my visit, we have a short discussion, interrupted by calls to his two mobile phones, you should meet our Sec. For Housing Jocklin announces and one call later that is exactly what we are doing. Tomorrow at 12.30, he is a good man says Jocklin he is really interested in listening to us and is trying to help.

As I sit in the taxi on my way to the recourse centre, my head is in a whirl with all I have seen, and this is the tip of the iceberg. India has 100 million slums and to date Homeless International has sponsored 400 community toilet blocks. A fantastic achievement but what is needed is scale, well one step at a time.