Grantee Profile: Shack/Slum Dwellers International
Today, for the first time in history, more people around the world live in cities than in rural regions. As Jane Weru, executive director of Pamoja Trust in Nairobi, Kenya, points out, however, “Most cities, especially in developing countries, are, in reality, two cities in one: the first, a formal and orderly urban center and the other, a chaotic world where there are more churches than toilets, where children sleep underneath the matrimonial bed because there is just not enough space, where unemployed and discontented youth slowly take over their neighborhoods.” Weru, also a member of the board of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), adds, “So addressing access to land and services in our cities is critical.”
In 1996, a few national federations of community-based organizations of shack and slum dwellers, mainly in India, South Africa, and Thailand, came together to found SDI. Now, organizations from some 30 developing countries In Latin America, Asia and Africa have all joined SDI.
Rockefeller Foundation support has helped SDI better leverage its resources to reduce poverty, landlessness and homelessness more effectively.
“The urban poor within our cities see themselves as refugees in their own land,” Weru explains.”The challenge of obtaining the security of land tenure is daunting. Often layered property rights exist with tenant, structure owners, and registered property owners all laying claim to these lands. The complexity of this situation calls for a multiplicity of strategies.”
This multiplicity of strategies is exactly what SDI helps identify and implement. In the same way that women exchange recipes, SDI members learn from each other’s experiences. They share successful mobilization, advocacy and problem-solving practices with similar urban communities in other regions and countries.
“We must build new skill sets to engage each other to transform what appear to be crises into potential opportunities,” says Sheela Patel, SDI board chair and co-founder of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres in Mumbai, India.
SDI prides itself on being a voice of urban poor people rather than a mouthpiece for them. The homegrown practices that this organization encourages include
- Individual daily savings plans that promote financial literacy, accountability and self-reliance
- The central participation of women and the most marginalized members of slum communities
- Grassroots-driven information gathering, through surveys, enumerations and settlement profiles
- Solution-finding through negotiations and dialogue
- Consistent engagement with local authorities
- International advocacy
As a result, SDI members have created solid savings networks that make established financial institutions take notice. Yes, poor people can borrow money and pay it back, say SDI leaders, enabling slum dwellers to obtain financing for better housing, toilets, and communal services. SDI even has its own finance facility, Urban Poor Fund International, which provides seed capital and funding for innovative pilot projects, as long as they can demonstrate leverage, scale, impact, and sustainability.
In several towns in Zimbabwe, hundreds of households now have water, thanks to SDI. Once-voiceless urban communities work with government officials to secure and develop land in their areas. In Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, for instance, SDI has a close relationship with the national government.
“Among the teeming masses, I see youth with their hopeful enthusiasm, I see the courage and innovation that it takes to survive in these harsh environments,” Jane Weru says. “SDI helps us invest more in our people, in educating our youth, in providing basic services, so that that energy, that courage, and that resilience can really count for something.”
