In 1972 when Paulo Freire visited India, he came to Bombay, and after spending the night there, he proceeded to Bangalore, leaving his hotel at 4’O clock in the morning. He vividly describes what he saw on the street of Bombay. “I could not recognize the street where thousands of people were sleeping. I was seeing people, people, people sleeping on the road and I asked myself, ‘what is the hope for them who have been born in the street, who have played as children in the street, who have run about in the street, who grew up in the street, who dreamt in the street, who worked in the street and who died in the street – what is the use of literacy for them? To live in a house is one of the fundamental rights of human beings – to have a place to rest.”
As the Secretary of the Ernakulam District Committee of the Kerala Association for Non Formal Education and Development, I have been able to organize hundreds of Community Education Centres at different parts of the Ernakulam District. I have had close associations with many of those centres. But the work I was able to do among the slum dwellers at Alwaye is quite memorable. My association with the slum dwellers started with the attempt of starting a community education centre at the slum of Alwaye with the help of my students.
Just imagine the horrors of the semi-starved semi-clad, impoverished, unfortunate people living on the sides of the streets in small thatched huts huddled together in a slum. During our literacy work, we had the experience of witnessing the devastating agony of the people dwelling in the slum of the little town of Alwaye.
The slum is situated near the river Periyar on the low lying land owned by the Government on both sides of a busy National Highway. There were more than a hundred incredibly small thatched huts under horrifyingly unhygienic conditions. These people came there from different parts of the State of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Most of them were beggars. Many of them were physically handicapped, unable to work for their livelihood. Some were prostitutes. They resorted to prostitution as the last means of finding a livelihood. There were some among these people, suffering from some dreadful diseases. Quite a few of them were cancer patients; some of them were tubercular patients. Some of them were lepers. It was a heterogeneous group of people believing in different religions.
All of them had some unhappy and disgraceful antecedent. It may be an inter-religious or inter-caste marriage, which made them outcasts in the conservative society of the rural area to which they belonged. In some cases it was some accident, which made them handicapped and unable to work for their livelihood. In the absence of social security measures, such people are compelled to beg for their livelihood. But they never wanted to be beggars in their own hometown. So they came to this distant place of Alwaye. In some cases it is a grave crime they had committed which made them to run away to live in obscurity, for the fear of punishment. In the case of some it was an elopement as the parents of the couple were opposed to the marriage. It is unemployment which drove some of the villagers to come to town of Alwaye in search of employment. They found a shelter in the slum. Pre-marital pregnancy has driven some women to this town for the fear of disgrace as they are looked down at as outcasts in Indian Society. Many such different reasons have brought the people of different circumstances and temperament together to dwell in Alwaye. Providently they found the low-lying vacant government – owned land at Alwaye. They occupied the land illegally putting up huts there. Though they were illegal occupants, they sold out portions of the illegally possessed area to those who came there later on. Within a short time the whole area was filled with huts, without even a breathing space in between and the place began to be known as “Beggars’ colony”. Most of the people were illiterates. Their small single room huts were closely huddled together that no family could have any privacy. They had no lavatory facilities. They excrete in public places polluting the area with foul smell and causing health hazards to themselves and others. The people quite often quarrel themselves using foul language, frequently resorting to violence. In the evenings, these people, if they are able to earn enough, get drunk to drown their sorrows and they make their dwelling place a noisy hell. The low-lying area where they lived gets flooded during the rainy seasons. Then the people had to run about seeking shelter with their belongings packed up in bundles. On the whole their life was quite miserable.
The people of Alwaye look down at these slum dwellers with utmost contempt. So they were a set of unfortunate desperate poor people for whom living was a bitter struggle. These people are considered social outcasts. The other people do not freely mingle with them. They are looked down at as beggars, prostitutes, thieves and anti-social elements. There are some among them who earned their livelihood by hard manual labour. A few among them earn their livelihood by showing physical feats at public places during festival seasons and collecting money from the onlookers. Most of them waste their earning on drugs and drinks and live a very poor life. Though there are schools near by, many of them do not send their children to schools. They send them to work in some small-scale industries or to serve as domestic servants in rich families. Though child-labour is prohibited by law, such laws are seldom enforced.
There were 105 families there and nearly 700 members in these families. Among these, about 300 were adults and other were children. Because of the hardships of life the people there were embittered towards the society. The society had been cruel to them. So out of bitterness and despair, quite a few of them indulge in antisocial activities.
It is not easy for social workers to have access to this community. They looked at everybody with suspicion. They thought that the entire world is turned against them to exploit them. They thought that the social workers come to them with some vested interests to exploit them. Only one or two militant political parties had some influence or hold on them because they used to protect them when the police came to evict them from the place or tease them for some reason or other. Under such circumstances, a work for the rehabilitation and development was a Herculean task.
To begin with, we had some disappointments. We realized that we had to approach this community in a very tactful manner. So at first with the help of the services of the students of a nearby institution, the youth of this community was organised. A club of the youth of the place was organised under the name ‘Friends Club’. A shed was put up in the place, as a meeting place for the youth. Then we found another problem. It was only then that we realized that the manual workers of the slum never wanted their children to mingle with the children of the beggars and prostitutes. Even among the poor there was class discrimination. The children of the beggars and prostitutes were being humiliated when they come to the club. We organised games and competitions for the members of the club and the children. Prizes were given to the winners. More opportunities were created for the children to mingle with one another. In our presence the children of both the groups began to mingle freely with one another. Then we, with the help of social service organizations, held free medical aid camps, which were a felt need of the area as most of the inhabitants were victims of serious diseases. Later we started tuition centres for the children and community education centres for the adults. Thus gradually we were able to win the confidence and goodwill of the people. We soon realized that unless their living conditions change, the people will never develop self-respect. So our next attempt was to get the people rehabilitated in better conditions. We gave memorandums to all the authorities concerned. But it was of no use. Then we organised public meetings and got write-ups published in the newspapers.
Copy of newspaper report about Alwaye Slum that appeared in Indian Express
SLUM DWELLERS SEEK SALVATION
The sore of Alwaye – the Thottakkattukara slum
Alwaye Feb. 7
The thottakkattukara slum dwellers are misery personified, moving instances of death-in life, sheltering themselves from ravages of weather in small thatched huts on both sides of the National Highway.
Social service organizations have been submitting memoranda regarding this to the Municipal Chairman, the local MLA, the Speaker and the Ministers concerned. But their pleas, like the slum dwellers prayers to Gods, have fallen on deaf ears.
Cardinal Joseph Parekkattil had given a five-acre plot of land to the government for the rehabilitation of the homeless and he had requested the District Collector to set apart 3.5 acres of that plot for the rehabilitation of 105 families rotting in Thottakkattukara slums. And the Collector had decided to give three and a half acres for the purpose. But the construction of a building for a family will cost about Rs.8000 and therein lies the problem.
A public meeting held at Thottakkattukara slum the other day has appealed to the municipality and the GCDA to share the burden. The meeting elected an action committee to expedite the rehabilitation proceedings. But is the officials who hold the key to initiating the woes of slum dwellers. The question is: Will they?
It is through persistent efforts and repeated representations of long fifteen years that we were able to make the government to take a decision to allot some land for these people to build houses. But the people were not prepared to shift to any distant place as they were accustomed to the town life depending on the people of the town for their livelihood. Finally, we were able to make the Government to allot small plots of land to each family in a village called Chunangumvely close to the town. The lethargic, indifferent and unsympathetic (or even hostile) attitude of some of the bureaucrats was quite disheartening and discouraging.
The next problem that confronted us was how to make money for the housing. During that time the Government launched a housing scheme for the poor. It is a scheme for building small houses for the weaker sections of the society. More than half the expense will be met by the Government through grant and loan. The rest is to be met by a sponsoring social service agency. A small share is to be met by the beneficiaries. The Little Flower Congregation of the Catholic Church (who under the leadership of Dr. Paul Karimathy were engaged in the rehabilitation programme right from the beginning) sponsored the project. So the construction of the houses for all the families started. Even then there were problems. Some of the local political groups and local political leaders had some vested interest in not getting the people shifted to the new site. They created lots of problems and obstructions. At one stage they were even able to turn the beneficiaries against the sponsors. Solving such problems and overcoming such difficulties were an uphill task. But finally through patient and preserving efforts we were able to overcome all the difficulties. The construction of the houses was completed. The people were excited to see the new small beautiful houses built for them. The day of shifting to the new houses was a festive day for all. The Minister for Housing inaugurated the Housing Project. Arrangements were made for water and power supply to the housing site. “The Sisters of Destitute” took up the leadership to construct a building and start a Nursery for the children. They started a Feeding Centre also for the children and the mothers.
Beneficiaries and guests at the inaugural function
Once when the slum dwellers became owners of their own houses, that brought about a great change in their attitude towards life. They are no longer disappointed, embittered, destitute engaged in antisocial activities. They themselves take leadership in starting tuition centres for their children and community education centres for the adults.
A Community Centre has been built there. It is now a delight and excitement for us to see the people living in happier and hygienic surroundings. Now the people have come to know about the welfare programmes of the Government which they could not avail themselves of, earlier, as they were the unauthorized encroachers of the Government owned land. Many of them who were beggars, now lead a decent life by availing themselves of the benefits of the welfare programmes. Now they take keen interest in sending their children to schools. We were surprised to see the happy transformation that the change of circumstances could bring about in people. The environment can make or mar the physical and mental make up of man.
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