Surveys
Enumeration is a great community mobilization starter.
Anybody can start a survey, get ten people together to do it. Just putting the knowledge of ten people together transforms the way they look at their settlement — they can touch it, they can feel the difference. And then that tickles their imagination and they can move ahead. When cities do the counting, poor people are always under-counted, and under-counting means the poor lose. Fifteen years ago, for example, there was no policy for pavement dwellers in Bombay — nobody acknowledged their existence. Every day there were demolitions, but the only thing that was clear was that it was the city’s job to demolish, and the people’s job to build again. The first survey of pavement dwellers defined a universe which nobody knew existed, and it started Mahila Milan, which would eventually transform their statistics and their understanding into a resettlement policy for pavement dwellers all over the city.
In the mean time, they travelled to cities all over India, Asia and Africa, helping others conduct enumerations.Their motto? When in doubt, count!
Festivals, Jamboress and Big Events
When canal-side settlements in Thailand held a big klong-cleaning, they called canal-dwellers from all over the country to come help, planned it to coincide with the Queen’s birthday for added luster, and turned a mucky job into a celebration of their right to live there, and proof that they are the best canal-keepers.
And when a community toilet was built in Kanpur, the Mahila Milan organized a big Sandas Mela [Toilet Festival], they called city and state officials to come cut the ribbon, visitors from all over India, thousands people from local communities, speeches, TV coverage, colored flags.
And when the people’s survey of Windhoek was finished in Namibia, the new federation put up a jamboree to present their statistics to the city in a burst of songs, dancing and solidarity.
These are ways of marking community milestones by turning them into celebrations which involve many.
These are ways of democratizing possibilities, of highlighting and disseminating issues like toilets, or houses, ration cards, policies — any issue at all — and getting people to know and talk about it.EXTRA: See the SUPF Savings federation in Phnom Penh engaging the Prime Minister of Cambodia April 20 2000 at one of the our Big Events. HERE
Community Mapping
For federations across Asia and Africa, an important part of a community’s data-gathering process is making settlement maps, which include houses, shops, workshops, pathways, water points, electric poles, along with problem spots and features in the area, so people can get a visual fix on their physical situation.
Mapping is a vital skill-builder when it comes time to plan settlement improvements and to assess development interventions.
In Thailand, for example, canal-side communities draw scaled maps of their own settlements, as part of their redevelopment planning, and also go upstream, beyond their settlements, to locate and map sources of pollution from factories, hospitals, restaurants and sewage outlets. Where do they learn these skills? From other canal-side settlers.
These community-maps, with their detailed, accurate, first-hand information on sources of pollution, are a powerful planning and mobilising tool, and also make an effective bargaining chip in negotiations for secure tenure, with cities obliged to accusing communities of spoiling the klongs they live along.
Savings and Credit — Savings Walk
When Alinah from Gauteng Province in South Africa returned from an exchange visit to Bombay, here’s what she said:
"All the time, there are savings. At the beginning and the end of the day. All the time, women are going up and down. They go every hour, every house, man! And even when they don’t come, then the women come to them with their savings. We saw that. And then the loans all the time too — savings and loans. We saw how they do the repayments. Each time someone saves five rupees for saving, five rupees for loan repayment. This is very good. We don’t do that much here — maybe it would be better if we did."
Both Mahila Milan in India and the Payatas Scavenger’s Federation in Manila have made the "savings walk" a feature of everyone’s visit to their settlements — you go house to house with one of the women, you collect the money, you document it, you come back to the office, count the money, put it in the ledger and process the loans — you actually do these primary things.
The savings walk gives visitors a vivid sense of how central these small, daily acts are sustaining their movement.Next Tools 2 Features
Land Searches
House modeling and layout
Building elements
Many more: pilot projects
Enumeration Mbare Harare
SUPF Phnom Penh
Federation Zimbabwe
Mapping in Thailand
The Savings Walk ... Bombay