Fighting for access to property
Bangalore is commonly nick-named the Indian Silicon Valley. Nevertheless, its recent fame - in the high-tech world and as a centre of scientific and economic development - cannot conceal the existence of slums and some extremely poor communities. In the shanty town of Ragiguda, which accounts for approximately 10,000 people and 3,000 houses, the government wants to destroy the village so that it can put new residential developments in its place, moving the inhabitants thirty kilometres away with no regard to their attachments to schools and jobs in the area.
The only alternative, therefore, is to give these people a chance to become owners of their properties. The problem here is that the government is demanding sums that are completely disproportionate to the economic situation of these communities. Fedina intervenes therefore by means of citizenship training, and helps the inhabitants take action so that their neighbourhoods are not reduced to rubble. The shanty towns’ inhabitants have at other times already attempted numerous demonstrations which have sometimes been violently repressed. Nevertheless, the daily assistance given by Fedina in these poor areas, strengthening social cohesion, especially in the area of microfinance, allows their inhabitants to hope for a better future. As one of them rejoices, “it’s great. Fedina helps us every week.” This is borne out by the Senior Citizen programme, which provides reception and care centres, and essential assistance in negotiating all the administrative hurdles involved with applying for a pension. Fedina also carries out lobbying work with the goal of contributing not only to the raising of the level of pensions, but also to the numbers of people who are able to benefit from them.
Helping the aged
Mosses, the programme co-ordinator, travels regularly to the shanty towns in order to hold meetings with elderly people and inform them of their many rights. He explains to them, for example, that it is possible to ask a doctor to draw up a certificate indicating that a woman is more than 65 years old. Like this she will, if she cannot work, be able to benefit from a pension. He alerts them equally to the fact that the doctor cannot ask for any money in exchange for the certificate as it is a free service. Fedina’s work, therefore, is one of day to day distribution of citizens’ information, combined with encouragement towards active citizenship so that impoverished communities have the means for increasingly independent organisation in defence of their rights.
Also read: Resonances Asia N°18 - November 2007
