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UrbanRC
URC
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Tel/Fax (855-23) 211-474, E |
CONTACT
Mr Heng Urban
Resource Center, PO
Box 2242, Phnom Penh,
CAMBODIA.-
email: urcpp@forum.org.kh |
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The URC was set up in 1997, and since
then its enthusiastic young team has not stopped for a breath.
The URC provides technical assistance to poor communities,
particularly Solidarity for the Urban Poor Federation (SUPF),
helping with the exploration of house designs and cost-saving building
techniques, mapping and surveying settlements, computerizing survey
data, housing construction, infrastructure planning, estimating,
providing measured architectural drawings and coordinating with other
aid organizations.
The URC’s support to poor communities’
housing and infrastructure improvement projects has been an important
ingredient in the city government’s increasing acceptance of community
driven solutions to problems of poverty and homelessness in Phnom Penh.
The URC provides opportunities for volunteer students to work
with communities and produces a bilingual newsletter on community
issues, “The Lotus Flower.”
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URC
Colombo, Sri Lanka |
CONTACT
Sevanatha URC, 23/1, Narahenpita Road, Nawala, SRI LANKA
Tel/Fax
(94-1) 878893
E-mail: urc@sri.lanka.net |
The
Sevanatha Urban Resource Center assists low income urban
communities in the areas of community based housing and infrastructure
projects, savings and credit, self-employment activities, health and
sanitation, environmental management and solid waste disposal.
Besides collecting and disseminating information on all these issues,
the URC offers training to to local CBOs and small NGOs, assists them to
link up with each other in networks and with national and international
institutions, development programs and sources of funds.
Since 1993, the URC has published a bi-monthly newsletter called Thorathurumalla
(Information kit) which covers community based housing and
infrastructure projects and passes on a variety of information on
health, sanitation and environmental issues.
Besides the main URC in Colombo, URC supports local organizations
in 4 provincial towns to operate branch URCs.
In
the role of mediator, the URC has assisted poor communities (and
Community Development Management Councils) to access government aid
programs and local and external resources, while mediating in conflicts. |
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URC
Kathmandu, Nepal |
CONTACT
Lumanti URC,
P.O. Box 10546,
Tel
523-822 Fax
(977-1) 520-480,
E-mail: shelter@lumanti.wlink.com.n |
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Lumanti Support Group for Shelter
was established as an NGO in 1992, and is now working in 68 slum and
squatter settlements in the Kathmandu Valley (representing about half of
the Kathmandu metropolitan area’s poor communities) on a variety of
issues - housing, sanitation, water supply, savings and credit, informal
education, childrens activities, health, etc.
Lumanti
works in close partnership with two large federations of poor
communities, the Nepal Mahila Ekata Samaj (Women’s Unity
Federation) and Nepal Baso Bas Basti Samrakshan Samaj (Community
Protection Federation). Lumanti
set up its URC in 1998, with support from the Asia Pacific 2000.
A
small team of engineers and technicians have been increasingly engaged
in providing technical support to communities that are building their
own sewers, water supply systems, toilets and road pavings.
As poor communities and the two federations gain in experience
and proficiency in managing these projects, the Lumanti URC’s role is
gradually taking on a more advocacy and support role, with the URC
actively involved in research into sanitation and water supply issues,
and interfacing with donors.
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Urban
Resource Unit
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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CONTACT
Urban Resource Unit, Block B 12-05, Pinang Raja Palm Court, Julan Sultan
Abdul Samad, Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur 50470, MALAYSIA,
E-mail: urujdr@pc.jaring.my
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The Urban Resource Unit in
Kuala Lumpur was set up in 1996 as a response to the mass evictions of
urban squatters in the 1980s and 1990s, even when the country’s boom
was stalled by Asia’s economic crisis in 1997.
The URU was set up in order to empower
communities thorough information sharing, to increase awareness and
build solidarity. The unit helps to prepare alternative plans, and
to present these to the government to begin a dialogue on secure
housing.
The URU has worked with community groups and
other NGOs to organize a massive assembly of residents of 15 longhouses
(state-built temporary housing where communities are dumped after
eviction) to discuss their needs with the Housing Ministry and Chief
Minister’s Office.
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