Sheela Patel | |
|---|---|
 Patel speaking at the 2011 Opening Plenary of World Water Week | |
| Born | 1952 (age 71–72) |
| Alma mater | Tata Institute of Social Sciences |
Sheela Patel (born 1952) is an activist and academic involved with people living in slums and shanty towns.
In 1974, Patel received her Masters in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai. She was then involved with a community centre called the Nagpada Neighbourhood House. [1]
With Prema Gopalan, Patel is the founding director of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), which she set up in Mumbai in 1984 as an advocacy group for the pavement dwellers of Mumbai. SPARC continues to this day to play a major role in the politics of slum development in India and throughout the Third World. [2] In 2000, SPARC was the recipient of the United Nations Human Settlement Award. [1]
Patel works closely with the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) and Mahila Milan, two community-based groups working on with the poor in Indian cities. She worked in the National Technical Advisory Group (NTAG) for the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).
She has founded the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, the Asian Women and Shelter Network and Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP), an organisation that works with women's collectives in more than 600 villages in Maharashtra. [1]
Patel is also one of the founders of Slum Dwellers International, a network of community-based organisations in 33 countries spanning Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
2011: Padma Shri award, the fourth highest civilian honor in India. [3]
2009: David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award [1]
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inhabited by impoverished people. Although slums are usually located in urban areas, in some countries they can be located in suburban areas where housing quality is low and living conditions are poor. While slums differ in size and other characteristics, most lack reliable sanitation services, supply of clean water, reliable electricity, law enforcement, and other basic services. Slum residences vary from shanty houses to professionally built dwellings which, because of poor-quality construction or lack of basic maintenance, have deteriorated.
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Jockin Arputham was an Indian community leader and activist, known for his campaigning work of more than 40 years on issues related to slums and shanty towns. He was born in Karnataka, India and moved to Mumbai, where he quickly became politicized and established himself as a community leader. In 2014, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside the organisation he helped to found, Slum Dwellers International. In 2011, he received the Padma Shri in New Delhi for his contributions to social work, presented by the President of India.
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The National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) in India was established by Jockin Arputham when he fought on behalf of a community of 70,000 to appeal a 1976 eviction order. It is a national organization which brings together multiple communities and their leaders who live in slum settlements around India. NSDF along with Mahila Milan are one of the oldest members of the Urban Poor Fund International Network. Due to the efforts of NSDF, around 90 buildings and 300 toilet blocks have been constructed in Mumbai, providing houses and sanitation to over 35,000 families. Additionally, around 100 toilet blocks have been constructed in Pune.
Mahila Milan is a self-organised, decentralised collective of female pavement dwellers in Bombay. The group works with issues such as housing, sanitation, and grassroots lending schemes. It aims at gaining women equal recognition for improvement of their communities, while indulging in important decision making activities. The loans granted by the group to its members in times of need, are sanctioned in the name of the woman of the house.
Pavement dwellers refers to informal housing built on the footpaths/pavements of city streets. The structures use the walls or fences which separate properties from the pavement and street outside. Materials include cloth, corrugated iron, cardboard, wood, plastic, and sometimes also bricks or cement.
The Slum Rehabilitation Act 1995 was passed by the government of the Indian state Maharashtra to protect the rights of swamp dwellers and promote the development of swamp areas. The Act protected from eviction, anyone who could produce a document proving they lived in the city of Mumbai before January 1995, regardless if they lived on the swamp or other kinds of marsh land. The ACT was the result of policy development that included grassroots slum dweller organisations, particularly SPARC.
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