Day 3. Dharavi

After our yummy breakfast we headed to another slum, Dharavi, to learn about waste management. Dharavi is often described as the largest slum in Asia, housing close to 1.5 million people (!). On the way there we picked up Vinod Shetty, director of ACORN India. This organization educates rag pickers and trains them in scientific methods of waste handling, segregation and recycling (Note: rag-pickers are those who pick up the tons of garbage littering the streets in Mumbai in order to recycle them. Most of them are women and small children).

I was not sure what to expect from Dharavi. In my mind I thought it was going to be very similar to the first slum we visited, extremely impoverished and somewhat hopeless. The idea of an organized waste management system in a slum was something my mind was having a hard time comprehending. We got off the bus and followed Mr. Shetty along muddy alleys and narrow roads to visit the many waste recycling sites.

I was very surprised to see so many men working in these small and crowded shops, recycling cardboard, plastic, metal from car parts, and a myriad of other things I can’t even remember. The rag pickers collect all the recyclable materials from the garbage around the city, bring it to these shops were they get processed and then sold to either paper or plastic companies for a very small profit. The men not only work, but also live in these shops, making the system sustainable. You’d never imagine to see a system like this in a crowded slum were most (if not all) people lack basic needs and most live on an income of $2-3 per day. Despite there being some level of organization and an income generating system, workers still work in precarious conditions (barefoot, no eye/hand/ear protection), and the money earned from the Dharavi recycling industry will never allow these people to move out of the slums or improve their life and health conditions. As impressed as I was with this slum, the current system is never going to allow social change.

Once again, what being done is not enough to help the community of Dharavi. My mind is still trying to comprehend the idea that earning an income is not enough to fight poverty. Earning a few dollars a day will not improve the lives of future generations. A sustainable system that allows the community to set solid foundations (ie. access to education, health care, stable incomes) will enable the change that is needed.

Dharavi

Late last week, our group visited Dharavi, which is one of the largest slums in Asia and called home by over 1.5 million people. This particular slum was made famous by the movie Slumdog Millionaire; however, what was depicted by the movie only shows a sliver of what this vibrant community exists as.

We were led through Dharavi by Vinod Shetty at Acorn India. Mr. Shetty eloquently and comprehensively explained all of the ins and outs of Dharavi, specifically with relation to the functioning industrial community that exists within the slum. It truly is a city within a city, and is currently under scrutiny and threat from the Indian government.

Dharavi lies almost directly in the middle of Mumbai – a very valuable and desirable location for development. Only a few weeks earlier, blocks and blocks of Dharavi were bulldozed announced by the government in a display that not only ruined homes and businesses, but also flexed the government’s muscles with regards to their influence on the pending development of Dharavi. Suffice to say that moving forward with this redevelopment would undoubtedly leave hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people displaced and put an end to a thriving industrial community that currently exists.

Under the guide of Mr. Shetty we were able to see firsthand how the residents of Dharavi have taken very little and turned it into quite a lot. These people recycle everything that can be re-used and then make their living from these products. Recycled car parts, dishwashers, glass pieces and just about any other large recyclable can be seen on the outskirts of the slum. Walking a few meters inside, we were exposed to veritable factories that are turning out recycled cardboard boxes, plastic drums, paper products and other necessary goods that are then sold to other businesses. It is in this way that the people of Dharavi have truly made something great, out of nothing.

In this same vein, Acorn India is doing the same for many of the children of Dharavi. Unlike the images seen in the movie Slumdog Millionaire, I did not witness children running wild in Dharavi. When we visited Acorn’s offices, half of which were destroyed in the government razing, we were introduced to Abdullah and Hussein. These two young brothers were part of the Dharavi Rocks! Program which aims to provide empowerment and self-worth through music and theatre education. The boys were gracious and welcoming, and responded excitedly when asked for an impromptu concert. This experience really gave meaning and proven value to the outreach program Acorn India is conducting. It made me think that some of the issues faced by these boys maybe aren’t so different than some faced by children in the United States. True, the geography and resources are vastly tilted in the direction of the United States; however, encouraging confidence through musical education is something that many children all over the world can relate to.

After our day together, Mr. Shetty asked us to follow up with him with regards to what we thought were the most important public health issues that Acorn India was either doing well in, or could use a bit more work towards. One of the most serious threats to human health I witnessed are the occupational hazards inflicted upon workers. On numerous occasions I saw men covered head to toe in dust and/or paint, workers were spending days in humid rooms with no ventilation sorting through mounds of dusty paper products. My picture of this can be seen in Charlotte Hager’s earlier blog. In Dharavi, sparks fly through the air with workers wearing no eye, ear or face protection; workplaces exist in the same breath as goats, insects, rodents and trash. Our Environmental and Occupation Health Professor would certainly be more than alarmed at the conditions that the men and women of Dharavi experience.

With countless NGO’s working in Dharavi, it is shocking to me that none of them appear to be addressing this issue – at least not on a level that we witnessed during our time there. The focus is, undoubtedly, more attuned to reproductive health, STD/STI screening, HIV/AIDS awareness and testing and perhaps nutritional concerns. From a public health student’s perspective, it almost seems that the EOH side of health is overlooked – not only in a slum in India, but perhaps also in America. Might it be that at home we don’t equate the workplace precautions we take for granted as protecting our health? Perhaps no parallel importance is put on knowing your HIV status, as well as making sure your lungs are safe from respiratory dangers in the workplace.

When I write to him, I will let Mr. Shetty know that the area in which I believe there can be the most improvement for the workers living in Dharavi is in with regards to their occupational safety. Perhaps this will pique an interest for Acorn India to potentially partner with a construction agency or health agency to bring in eye protection, ear plugs or personal air ventilators. If one industry could donate 1,000 hard hats to workers, it could make all the difference.

I hope that this blog, and the other sentiments and pictures shared here, will expand beyond our community of family, friends and colleagues so that the “real” Dharavi can be understood by those who might think that it, and all of India, is only as seen in the movies.

Dharavi: An Urban Slum & Solid Waste Recycling

It’s Day Four in India, the monsoon weather continues, leaving the roads alternately wet and dry. The sun has rarely been out from behind the clouds. This morning dawned cloudy but not rainy. Today we visited, Dharavi, once considered Asia’s largest slum. Started over 75 years ago by impoverished migrants who migrated from the economically depressed rural areas to the city of Mumbai in search of work and money. The majority of these migrants and residents of Dharavi are men, far away from their families who are left behind in the villages, but there are some women and children as well. The men send money back home periodically and some return to the villages for the harvest season or for family occasions. Our host in Dharavi was ACORN India and Vinod Shetty, Esq., who leads The Dharavi Project. This group is geared towards providing education and resources to the children of Dharavi and helping the residents mobilize to improve their communal conditions.

One of the main industries in Dharavi is the solid waste management and recycling industry. Just about every kind of solid waste from plastics, paper, and glass to white goods, wood, auto parts and sheet metal in every shape and form are recycled by ragpickers or other recyclers and either re-constituted in situ or collated for transport to other processing plants in the city. Residents earn money through the sales of these recyclable materials. For instance a cardboard recycler (of which there are about a 50-75 in a 100 meter stretch of road) receives brown cardboard boxes from all parts of the city, breaks them down by removing staples, and collates them into batches which are then sold to a pulp and paper mill on the outskirts of the city to be converted to papier mache and then re-constituted back into boxes. One of the small businesses we stopped by reported receiving 2000Kg/day of cardboard which it can then sell to the paper mill for Rs.7/Kg for approximately Rs. 14,000/day. Plastic can be sold for Rs. 25-30/Kg. Each day, 10,000 tons of solid waste trash arrives in Dharavi to be processed and without the vital intermediate recycling services provided by the small businesses of the slum factories, the solid waste would be sent to a landfill.

Despite playing such an integral role in the economy and the waste management sector, these small businesses are considered to be part of the informal work sector and lack essential occupational health and safety practices. The workers wear minimal clothing due to the heat exposing limbs, fingers, feet to unguarded machinery blades, welders working with sheet metal from cars use sunglasses in place of welding goggles, and none of the workers use hearing protection despite the near deafening noise.

Hence occupational health and safety represents a possible area of intervention either by ACORN India and The Dharavi Project or an alterate organization interested in amerliorating the health and safety conditions of this key workforce.