We have been spending the last few days speaking to shopkeepers, building owners and residents about the road in front of the KHOJ office. In the past 10 years the road has been redone and destroyed 4 or 5 times. We tried to understand why. It quickly became clear that this wasn’t just a technical issue. The road could never be repaired and maintained without the active support and involvement of the people living alongside it.

The road issue is also linked to the water system. The pipes under the road are completely plugged and during the rainy season used water comes back up to the surface and inundates the road. Last July-August going to the KHOJ office meant walking through sewage. The shopkeepers were particularly affected since no business could happen.

The stagnant sewage water became a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The three queens: Malaria, Chikungunya and Dengue are endemic in Khirkee. Many people told us how they had been sick for long stretches of time, including colleagues at KHOJ.

Historically, the water problem emerged with water pumps, which suddenly meant that more water was getting consumed and that evacuation had to be organized more systematically. Masterji, an elderly resident who knows Khirkee since pre-independence days said that before water pipes and pumps were installed no drainage system was needed.

Khirkee, being an “unauthorized colony”, the authorities are not taking any responsibility regarding the water system. Whatever exists now has been built by groups of residents (it is a user-generated water-system). The water comes from the municipality but the pipes have been installed locally. Since then many new 6 to 7 stories-high buildings have emerged along the road, substantially increasing water consumption. The existing sewage pipes which were laid down fifteen years ago have become too small to take the load produced by the new high-rises. To add to the problem all kinds of plastic waste and rubble that is thrown on the streets ends its journey in the pipes,  plugs it.

Since the pipes are below the ground they are much harder to clean. To clean them someone must go below the road through a manhole and manually remove some of the junk plugging the pipe. The rest is pumped out by a machine.

To make matters worse, according to some of the residents, trying to unplug the blocks in the sewage with high pressure pumps may cause pipes to burst.

There are several suggestions being made which we will factor in our research and action: to retrace the water flows through older well systems and use them to absorb rain and storm waters, thus easing the pressure on the sewage and other systems; having regular clean ups of the sewage, plugging the points of entry of dry and rough garbage so that systems do not get clogged, so on and so forth.

We began by building on Pooja Sood’s suggestion of naming the road – Hamaari Sadak which means Our Road, and inviting the neighbourhood to discuss suggestions and proposals during the workshop on Monday.

One thing is certain, the road and water issues can only be addressed by a coming together of the residents.

The following text is a documentation of a neighbourhood in Dharavi, closely connected to URBZ, that has taken steps to nurture its local youth by providing them with a creative space and the tools to learn a variety of invaluable life-long skills. This contribution will briefly showcase the inception of the Shelter at Dharavi, the processes that formed the backbone of its vision, and the children who have embraced the project’s outputs and are beginning to take advantage of the new activities available to them.

The Project’s Inception

The Shelter at Dharavi came into being through a locally-based initiative that was aimed at embracing the children living in New Transit Camp, Social Nagar. A local resident who had been active in the community felt that a particular element was missing; a space for youth to congregate, exchange ideas, create art, play, and learn. His idea was to create a new centre that would be accessible to the community’s youth. The centre would not only provide a space to meet but also a number of organized activities that local children would otherwise not have access to.

Through this grassroots process, the Shelter began to take its root. As the ideas and plans for the centre matured, a decision to construct a building on a recently inherited local plot was made. The local resident who took on the leadership role chose to approach URBZ, asking them to participate and assist local residents in the construction and realisation of their vision. This partnership was welcomed and the subsequent construction of the Shelter as well as the organization of the activities took on a collaborative and participatory methodology.

Soon after the creation of this partnership the Shelter wasted no time in quickly establishing itself as a community hub. A simple building was constructed and soon thereafter the local youth began to fill it. Several volunteers began to work with the Shelter, providing local children with art lessons and other fun afterschool activities. Throughout this time the children and their parents were consulted on what types of programs they would like to see at the Shelter. The results of this simple consultation process called for a fun publicity event, which would soon give way to a great deal of interest in the Shelter from both local residents and individuals from outside of Dharavi. The publicized event would take place over two days and would fittingly be called, Dharavi 48.

The Dharavi 48 Event

Dharavi 48 sparked a great deal of interest from surrounding communities and a number of individuals from outside of Dharavi. Organizers were excited to see an incredible response to the event, as the venue where it was hosted was bursting at the seams. The event showcased the artwork that had been created by local children and also drew upon a number of well-known artists based in Mumbai.

There were also a number of fun activities for all to take part in. Over the course of two days, organizers took participants back and forth from the newly constructed Shelter building and the local community hall, where the larger activities were taking place. Activities ranged from arts & crafts workshops to a lesson and performance by one of Mumbai’s foremost Capoeira experts (traditional Brazilian martial art/dance).

The local children were quite literally able to make their mark on their new centre as exciting painting activities took over the walls of the Shelter.

The event was a great opportunity for us to reach out to more people that came to learn about the Shelter, but most importantly for the children and residents to engage in a 2 day art event that brought people from outside to step into Dharavi for the first time and learn what this place is really about; a place where ambitions are strong, and aspirations are high, where children have an incredible energy and a capacity to learn and swallow the world if given the opportunity, where the world’s future artists and creative minds exist, where people have the will, the strength and heart to make things change for the better by themselves.

It is a place that needs to be legitimized so that people can synergize all their positive energy into working towards their future rather than battling against a system by which they are deemed illegal, by a system that doesn’t collaborate with the residents to understand who they really are, by a system that wants to use a ‘tabula rasa’ approach and force them all to start from zero all over again.

Current Activities

Since the Dharavi 48 event some of the more specialized activities that were to be offered at the Shelter have gained realization. Organizers from the Shelter were approached by individuals who were interested in continuing the highly inspirational Capoeira activities that captivated so many people during Dharavi 48. Another participant from the event came forward with a prop0sal for a formal photography class. Both of these proposals formed the first core set of activities that would be offered at the Shelter.

Photography Classes

Children are currently taking part in photography classes organized by photographer and instructor Alex Copley. The classes, which are run on Wednesday and Sunday each week, will take the children through the fundamentals of photography, teaching them the basics of light, composition, and colour. At current the classes are provided using five donated 35mm film cameras.

The children are split into groups, of which there is one camera for them to use.

Capoeira Classes

The classes in Capoeira teach children agility, respect, and self-control, all within an exhilarating environment of group energy, music, and dance.

The classes are lead by Mumbai’s own Reza Masaah, a renowned expert who offers high-level classes throughout the city. Children decend on the Community Hall every Sunday morning to take part in the classes.

Other Activities

The Shelter is currently open everyday from 1:00pm to 5:00pm, and later during the activities offered on Wednesday and Sunday. Throughout the week, the Shelter is staffed by a local woman who takes the kids through physical fitness exercises and other fun activities, such as arts & crafts and games.

Several activities are currently in the early stages of development; dance classes, formal english lessons, yoga, and further art classes.

Moving Forward

Our vision is to use art as powerful medium for expression, unity, sharing, and unlocking the community youth’s intuitive and creative impulses. We are working towards creating a safe and nurturing platform to free children to think and dream and sense.

Our mission is to continue to facilitate the development of creative initiatives in this space and collaborate in the connections of people to places – in this case a vibrant neighbourhood that is currently being planned without its residents’ participation.

On the 22nd and 23rd of May, 2010, The Shelter at Dharavi is hosting a two-day participatory workshop open to everyone who is interested in the creative arts. The event, which is entitled Art in Bombay’s Capital: Dharavi (ABC:D), is a chance for people to actively participate with local children and learn about the activities that are currently available at the Shelter. The event will be open from 12:00 noon onwards on both the 22nd and 23rd.

The workshop will consist of a series of projects in photography, performance, drawing and painting, capoeira, and will be followed by film screenings. The outputs of the event will contribute to a mobile exhibition, which will showcase a larger collection of work from local children and several Mumbai artists.

The entry fee for participants is Rs. 300, 100% of which will go towards sustaining and improving the current activities at the shelter. Please visit the Shelter at Dharavi Facebook page for all of the latest Shelter information!

“Bombay is a crowd. But I began to feel, when I was some way into the city from the airport that morning, that the crowd on the pavement and the road was very great, and that something unusual might be happening.”

Every new visitor to Bombay, has had a similar observation to that of V. S. Naipaul, as he arrived in the city to write his dark, vibrant, and exciting travelogue, India: A Million Mutinies Now. He was introduced to a city of much warmth; a city of much chaos; a city of many people.

Ever since Naipaul’s experiences were documented between 1988 and 1990, an incredible process of transformation has continued to change the face of Bombay; now Mumbai. Many of the neighbourhoods of 1988 have grown into sky-scraping districts, embracing global connections and international faces. The faces of Naipaul’s “crowds” themselves have changed in so many ways, experiencing warm embrace, violent clash, and boisterous development. Some have become wealthy, while others have remained poor.

As urbanists continue to stretch and scrunch the literary fabric of today’s Mumbai, it is important to make reference to these wonderful works of the past. They remind us that documentations must be made of the city’s most cherished and personal vessels; its people.

Mumbai, “is a crowd”. But what do we see in the crowds of today?

On the 6^th and 7^th of this month we organised a 48 hour workshop with and for the residents of New Transit Camp in Dharavi. We have spent now nearly 3 months working with the children at the Dharavi Shelter, creating a new platform for art and expression, learning about the residents’ lives and thoughts and sharing this space for learning and growing.

We have been engaged in activities ranging from drawing and painting, animation screening, dance, visits to the city, as well as improving the current space we inhabit. What has been very special from the start of this small initiative, is that we have closely worked with the residents of the community, always seeking elders advice and understanding the communities´ aspirations and hopes for the shelter, and we have been working hard to try and achieve them.

The 48 hour event we organised in Dharavi had two main aims, one was to gain some more funds for our dreams for the site to include a space for a library and a computer room, as well funds for more activities, and the other was to raise more awareness and get more people involved in the shelter and its activities.

The event was incredible, not because we raised a lot of money (because we honestly didn’t!) but because together with the effort of so many volunteers and the community we engaged in two days of sharing, learning and lots of fun with so many new creative activities with the children.

The first 24 hours

So the first day, after setting up the artwork for sale and organising the hall, we began our daytime activities. The children engaged in a drawing competition facilitated by Common Room artists Khushnam and Anitra. This was followed by a clay workshop by a group of youth from neighbouring ‘Khumbarwada’ (a part of Dharavi where Gujarati potters live and work) who made little toys and objects out of clay. In the afternoon, a painting workshop was conducted by American artist Alison Reeves and in addition to this, Sejal and Snowy, also conducted a mural painting workshop with a group of children inside the Shelter. They painted the walls with blackboard paint to enable the space to be used for learning in the future.

In addition to all the art activities, Sudharak Olwe, from the Times of India Group, and his team of photographers also exhibited the photographic work they have been doing in Dharavi and made a presentation about their future work. Now their team is interested in commencing a photography workshop with the children so that the children document their environment and neighbourhood streets.

In this space, we also displayed an Austrian exhibition which documented ´cultures of living´ through images of homes and people which were photographed and then exchanged to later emerge as a book.

At the event, Italian and German and students from Liebniz University that had been working in Dharavi for a week learning about the history of the houses, presented back to the community what they had learnt and what they wished to work on in the future. The work was exhibited in the main hall enabling community residents to discuss and critique what they saw. It was an extremely valuable opportunity for sharing and learning as well as generating discussions about people’s stories, their creative efforts and their aspirations.

Lastly, the evening ended with a beautiful musical performance by sitar player Madhusudhan Kumar who was accompanied by his tabla player. The musicians called on the participation of the children and beckoned them onto stage to give them an introduction to classical Indian rhythms. The children sang and screamed to their hearts content!

The last 24 hours

The second day began with new energy and new volunteers. Roy, Avani, Parul and Steve, brought with themselves lots of paper plates, feathers, glitter and paints and conducted an extremely enjoyable mask making activity with the children. In addition to this an Italian photographer, that has travelled around India for quite many months, dropped by to show his work to the children and learn about their opinions and thoughts about what they saw. The Khumbars, dropped by again as well, this time to demonstrate to the audience, their pot making skills on the spinning wheel. In addition Yashmi and Namta did an incredible mural painting workshop with the children in the entrance wall of the shelter, where they joined in a collaborative effort to paint a tree with many branches and gathered the children to write their names all around it.

In the early evening, we were joined by the Capoeria group in Mumbai, who came to conduct a small class and perform their beautiful art at the event. Rezah Massah, the professor of the team, imbibed the audience with uplifting energy and gathered the children to do some capoeira exercises. This was then followed by a brilliant performance from the team.

Koli (the fishermen folk and original residents of Dharavi and the city) set up a stall and sold delicious fish treats for the hungry bellies throughout the evening. People mingled, gathered, shared, learnt, danced, smiled, participated and most importantly enjoyed themselves!

The final activity for the event was the much waited dance competition the children had been practicing for weeks. Paul’s wife (who owns the shelter and has encouraged us to work there) took over the stage and presented the dancers show. This was followed by a prize distribution and lots of music, dancing and fun!

The event was a great opportunity for us to reach out to more people that came to learn about the Shelter, but most importantly for the children and  residents to engage in a 2 day art event that brought people from outside to step into Dharavi for the first time and learn what this place is really about; a place where ambitions are strong, and aspirations are high, where children have an incredible energy and a capacity to learn and swallow the world if given the opportunity, where the worlds future artists and creative minds exist, where people have the will, the strength and heart to make things change for the better by themselves. A place that needs to be legitimized so that people can synergize all their positive energy into working towards their future rather than battling against a system by which they are deemed illegal, by a system that doesn’t collaborate with the residents to understand who they really are, by a system that wants to use a ‘tabula rasa’ approach and force them all to start from zero all over again.