SPARC hosted 55 architecture students
from the UMEA University of Sweden in which the director of SPARC, Ms. Sheela Patel
and SPARC staff member, Ms. Keya gave a presentation on SPARC’s slum
redevelopment endeavors and working closely with the community for development.
In her opening, Sheela explained why
it was necessary to work in partnership with the community regardless of your
field of profession; it is necessary to share knowledge that will help the
community understand and then use the knowledge in their own capacity. As an example, Sheela explained that 85% of
housing is built by the people in a way they understand; SPARC supports them by
working with policy makers and other professionals to provide the urban poor
with knowledge, material, and other support needed for their development.
Housing involves a series of processes
which SPARC is required to undertake; some of the things it involves is data
collection, designing solutions, among others. SPARC produces information and
documentation to help the urban poor to acquire proper housing and public
benefits. In this endeavor, SPARC
focuses to produce a strategy that helps in good governance and recognition of
city members. On this note Sheela added that the poor are should be treated
with respect and not as garbage and that they should have a place safe to stay.
One of the
students questioned the slum dwellers reluctance to relocation to which Sheela citied Dharavi’s example;
the slums are not only residential areas but more like “towns” within which the
lives of the poor rotate; it is also the place for their businesses and thus
their source of living. Therefore, people resist to protect their small
companies, jobs that generates them income and they resist to protect their
homes. Relocation sites only provide
residential rooms but fail at providing means to procure an income. In addition, the maintenance cost is higher
at the relocation sites.
Sheela also explained the necessity
of proper identification documentation to identify the true beneficiaries and
also to provide security to the urban poor.
Incremental housing is carried out by urban poor on various scales. This gives the urban poor a strong sense of
ownership. Thus, a lack of identification
security and a desire to resist safeguarding what belongs to them also makes
the urban poor wary of relocation.
On the end note, Sheela said that SPARC’s
role is to challenge professional behavior to work with their knowledge to help
develop the poor communities. On a challenging note, she added that in her
perspective therefore, as a professional, it is your role to put a mirror or
reflect to show how others perceive things and show your case how you perceive
the situation and how and the rest differ. In that way, one can be able to
create new ideas to change rather than doing the same thing over and over
again.
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