The reality of life in a waste picker slum

Parag Gupta
Founder, Waste Ventures

Further, life in the slum is as diverse as life outside the slum. There are people with larger space, small spaces, people who have had the ability to invest in coolers, in better walls or stronger roof covering. There will be people with electricity, people without it. There will be people who have bought the “rights” to a plot, and people who “rent” (yes, many slum dwellers do pay rent).

What however is common is that life in the slum can change dramatically. Since services are often delivered informally there can easily be disruptions, some days water won’t be there, some days electricity not. The slum can be marked for “resettlement” and be demolished or one day the police might lock it up and require bribes from anybody wishing to enter. One, sadly, common source of such disruptive change are fires. Just that happened recently in one of the waste picker slums here in Delhi. Over 350 families lost their homes, and all their belongings in just a few hours. Below you can find some pictures of the slum the morning after the fire:

Together with other organizations working in this space, we have decided to raise funds to support the people of this slum to rebuild their homes and restart their lives. If you want to contribute you can donate on our Global Giving page, all of the funds (apart from the GlobalGiving admin fee) goes directly to the slum dwellers in this community.