The Shelter at Dharavi is gaining greater momentum with its various creative activities and more and more new children flocking into the shelter to see what is going on and requesting drawing classes. The energy and enthusiasm is incredible making our work seem even more worthwhile and significant.
We have now already painted the new entrance to the shelter, which was a creative and collaborative mural painting produced by many of the children of Dharavi.
Now in the weeks to come we are hoping to keep on developing and improving the entire site so that the shelter grows and becomes a dynamic and multi-use space that is used by not only the children, but also the elders, youth and women. We want to see the space grow in a participatory manner, with people contributing by painting its walls, planting flowers and shrubs, building a fun play area with re-used materials and thus making the space entirely their own. Already we have seen how the children have self-organised themselves, taking charge of clearing out the space, organising the room, taking a register of all new children coming in and ensuring the doors are all locked when they leave.
Our dreams for the site now include building on what already exists and creating a vibrant space for creative social exchange, learning and interaction. We would like to have a library, a café, a play area for children and a garden and as Paul’s motivation of creating this space is a testimony to the willingness of Dharavi residents to improve their living standards, we would like this place to become a symbol of this in the way that it is created too. Using materials from Dharavi itself and using the skills and ideas from its residents we would like to assist by building a play area from disused car tyres, making a wall from glass bottles from Dharavi’s compound 13 recycling area, decorating the patio with pots made in neighbouring Khumbarwada and planting mangrove saplings in the garden as a symbol of the land where Dharavi originated.
Please take a look at our poster (below) with some of the ideas of the activities we would like to carry out at the Shelter and the costs for each activity. Your donations can make these dreams come true?
Click here to enlarge the flyer
