Mahila Milan: Difference between revisions

'''Mahila Milan''' (Hindi: 'women together'), is a [[Self-organization|self-organised]], [[Decentralised system|decentralised]] collective of female [[pavement dwellers]] in [[Mumbai|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. <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sparcindia.org/aboutmm.php|title=Mahila Milan|last=|first=|date=|website=|url-status=live|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref> The loans granted by the group to its members in times of need, are sanctioned in the name of the woman of the house. <ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://knowyourcity.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Street_Wise1.pdf|title=Life Savings: The Bank that is Mahila Milan|last=|first=|date=|website=|url-status=live|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref>  

Mahila Milan was formed in the 1980s, when the [[National Slum Dwellers Federation]] (NSDF) agreed to help create a sister organisation complementary to its own, to encourage more women to enter leadership roles in slum development and poverty alleviation, with the assistance of [[Sheela Patel]] and her group SPARC.<ref>SDI: [http://www.sdinet.org/documents/doc2.htm India] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070309162820/http://www.sdinet.org/documents/doc2.htm |date=2007-03-09 }}</ref> Community-based organizations, Mahila Milan and the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF), alongside the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC), have been working together since the mid-1980s to improve the housing situation of pavement dwellers in Byculla, an area in central Mumbai. When these three organizations came together to form what is known as the Alliance, pavement dwellers were amongst the worst of inhabitants in the city. Although physically quite visible on the streets, pavement dwellers were entirely invisible in public policy. They could not obtain ration cards, which are identity cards that grant citizens the right to schooling and access to subsidized food, nor could they gain access to basic services like water, sanitation, and electricity. Pavement dwellers, unlike slum dwellers, were also excluded from electoral rolls and any official census taken in the city and throughout the country. <ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.citego.org/bdf_fiche-document-1082_en.html|title=Mumbai, India: Pavement-dwellers' movements and their struggle to define citizenship in a city striving to achieve "world-class" status|last=|first=|date=|website=|url-status=live|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}</ref>

A survey carried out by SPARC between July and October of 1985 found that pavement dwellers were not transient populations, but people who had lived for over two decades in the city.  This was documented and published in ''[[We The Invisible]]'', which detailed the background of these people from the poorest districts of [[India]] - victims of [[underdevelopment]], [[communal violence]], [[floods]], [[famines]] and other crises.  There were no evictions, and by March 1987 Mahila Milan was established to help poor illiterate women in each settlement understand the politics of why they cannot get land in the city for their house, and to develop a strategy to present to the city.<ref name="PAB">{{cite journal |last1=Patel |first1=Sheela |last2=Arputham |first2=Jockin |last3=Bartlett |first3=Sheridan |title="We beat the path by walking": How the women of Mahila Milan in India learned to plan, design, finance and build housing |journal=Environment & Urbanization |date=2015 |doi=10.1177/0956247815617440 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

In 1992, leaders of the emerging South African Homeless People’s Federation went to [[Mumbai]] to participate in a survey and housing exhibition. This fuelled the participation of Mahila Milan and [[National Slum Dwellers Federation|NSDF]] leaders to visit [[Durban]]. There, they conducted the first training for community leaders from five settlements in Piesang River. What started with a survey, ended with a housing exhibition. <ref name=":0">{{Cite document|title=We beat the path by walking" How the women of Mahila Milan in India learned to plan, design, finance and build housing.|last=|first=|date=|doi=10.1177/0956247815617440|s2cid=146932242}}</ref>

The alliance formed by the South African Federation and Mahila Milan, along with federations having similar goals, from more than 30 countries, are now united under the umbrella organisation of [[Slum Dwellers International|Shack/Slum Dwellers International]] (SDI). Among their many shared practices and objectives, these central hands-on housing design and development processes continue to explore and promise a sector house in the city. <ref name=":0" /> [[Slum Dwellers International|SDI]] gained much more exposure than ever before in the year 2001 when it took a 36-member international team to [[New York City|New York]]. at the [[United Nations]] governing council meetings, the team built a full-size house model and a community toilet block in the UN building. Although, merely five or six years old, the SDI was on its path to pave a way for the urban poor to gain recognition globally and stake their claim in the global habitat-linked discussions. Members of SDI, were however disappointed as only a few cared about what the urban poor had to say in the formal proceedings. [[Kofi Annan]], then the head of the UN, spent over half an hour with the SDI delegation and, before SDI really understood branding and imagery, the house model exhibition in the UN made it known throughout the global community, as delegation after delegation had its pictures taken in front of the SDI house or toilet model.<ref name=":0" />