Slums

The first time I ever got to see a slum was when I was eight years old. It was during the Salvadorian civil war and it was going to be the first time I was going to meet my extended family. I remember sitting in the taxi cab with my twin brother and my parents as we rode along a highway and perched on top of a mountain top was for the first time where I saw a sea of shiny iron roofs that reflected against the hot sun. As we passed by the shanty houses, I asked my mother, if the people in these homes own televisions. As with any mother that wants to protect their children from the realities of poverty, she said yes. As a kid being born in the United States, I did not understand the significance of war, anything in relations to poverty, or what it was to live in a slum. All I knew where the comforts of my own home where I had running water, food in the refrigerator, a roof above my head, and cartoons to watch on Saturday morning.

It was until adulthood that I began to understand the history and how civil war pushed my parents out of their beloved country to come to the US. It was these childhood memories that would play an important role why I chose the public health path and to one day start up my own social entrepreneurship venture, but it has also taught me to understand empathy on the struggles of poverty. My public health education has allowed me to visit the township of Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa, and the tent cities of Carrefour, Port-au-Prince, Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, but nothing was really going to prepare me for what I was going to see in the slums of Andheri today. While the slums of Khayelitsha and Carrefour where perpetrated by racial segregation and natural destruction, the slums of Andheri are perpetrated by the rapid growth of urban sprawl and economic growth.

As an alpha world city, Mumbai (Bombay) continues to be the most populous city (26 billion) in India and sixth in the world. Overshadowed by the trendy skyline of south Mumbai, the slums of Andheri are a byproduct of a country that is still coming to terms in how to assist the most destitute in providing free and accessible health care.
We had the privilege and opportunity to observe the organization, Americares as they conducted their own mini-medical clinic in the Muslim section of the Andheri slums. It was an educational experience because it made me realize how the lack of resources can impede the health care coverage of a disenfranchised population. In the past, I have been very fortunate to participate in two medical service trips and the experience has allowed me to understand and learn the limitations of working with low resources. In public health, money speaks louder than words and organizations like Americares are doing good in serving the underprivileged, while working with existing limitations. The need of monetary, medical, and human resources are essential to provide effective and free health care coverage to the people of the Andheri slums, but of course there is always a disconnect.

The disconnect where organizations like Americares can do so much with their limited resources, and where the people of the Andheri slums ask why is there not enough help.

It is this disconnect why social entrepreneurship is so important and it has left me asking how can someone like me help organizations like Americares gain more monetary resources and self-sustainability to continue the work they do. Issues like these are very important to me because at the end of the day, I was a visitor at the Andheri slum, and I left. The people of Andheri stay behind and they continue everyday with their struggles and wonder where are they going to get clean water and wonder when will the Americares mobile van will once again visit their neighborhood. When I look at the children’s faces when I visit slums like Andheri and I always wonder if that child could have been me. These are always the thoughts that run my mind.