Principles of community organisation according to Jockin Arputham – and why they are relevant today
Guest author Celine D'Cruz distils this inspirational leader’s guiding principles and explains their continuing relevance for the urban poor.
Mahalakshmi Dhobi Ghat is an open air laundry place in Mumbai where the community leaves clothings and towels to air dry. Communities in informal settlements face many challenges and have to organise accordingly (Photo: Ninara, via Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
Jockin Arputham was a slum leader from Mumbai who brought a radically different strategy to slum dweller organisations’ needs and demands – first in India and then in 30 other nations.
After a huge eviction of 800 families in 1976 in his own settlement at Janata Colony, Jockin reflected on his finite power as a single male leader. In the absence of any support from local politicians or trade union groups, Jockin brought community leaders from different settlements of Mumbai together and started the National Slum Dwellers Federation.
This platform harnessed the capacities, skills, knowledge and resources of local communities. He realised that a single community on its own was powerless.
Building the organisational resilience of the urban poor
Jockin went on to form Slum Dwellers International (SDI) in 1996 and guided hundreds of community organisations across the global South to come together and organise, based on the following principles:
- The greater the vulnerability of the community, the higher the motivation to act and accelerate change
The constant eviction of pavement dwellers in Mumbai made them even more vulnerable than slum dwellers. Yet most contributed to the city’s economy as domestic helpers, handcart pullers, street vendors and recycling specialists.
Encouraged by Jockin, women across different pavement settlements came together to create Mahila Milan, an organisation that worked together with male leaders under the umbrella of the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF). These early women leaders also supported the slum dwellers.
Jockin saw the value of the symbiotic relationship between the two groups and how it improved negotiating power with the authorities. This way they built a voice and identity, coming together for their common good.
- Begin with the poorest and most vulnerable to ensure all are included
Slum dweller families considered themselves better off than those of pavement dwellers who lived on the streets and were evicted on a regular basis – suffering huge losses and damages in the process. They had to take loans and reinvest in new building materials. They often had to pay a bribe to their local leaders, councillors and police, in the hope of stopping an eviction and retrieving their possessions.
Mahila Milan savings groups developed support for ‘daily savings’ and credit with savings group collectors, with no set loan payback period or amount. This made credit accessible to all. Poorer women with single family incomes and daily wages were able to save smaller amounts of money, and over time saw their savings grow. Here was a financial facility that met their needs, and was affordable to all.
- Women are natural organisers – their instinct to protect their families makes them invaluable agents of change
Traditionally most community leaders are men, with very few role models to show them how to work with women as equals. By creating a separate space for women to organise, Jockin gave women an opportunity to redefine their relationships between themselves, and with their traditional male leaders.
By putting women at the centre of problem-solving, the federation built its collective capabilities to challenge local power structures without the middle man, and leverage resources in the process.
The eviction of Apna Zopadpatti in 1986 marked the beginning of the pavement dwellers movement in Mumbai. When the police arrived to evict them, they dismantled their own huts and collected waste that was loaded onto municipal trucks. Once the trucks had left, the women rebuilt their homes, allowing them to experience their collective power of organising and communicating. Today over 80% of federation leaders are women.
- Bringing together communities with similar locations makes it easier to organise and negotiate with a common land authority
Organising six million slum dwellers in a city like Mumbai is a messy task even for an urban poor movement. Communities on their own do not have the power to influence local politics or effect change. So each of the groups were organised according to who owned the land they occupied: the pavement dwellers, the residents of Dharavi, and the Railway, Airport and Port Trust slum settlements. This enabled them to negotiate for specific needs with their respective land authority.
This principle of organising localises risks, the problem and solutions. It is particularly useful for those communities in similar geographies facing similar climate risks and vulnerabilities.
For example, coastal, riverside, hillside and other high-risk locations find it easier to develop specific, locally-rooted adaptation strategies. The communities have already built their capacity bringing together their local knowledge to engage with external expert knowledge.
- City-wide networks of community savings groups produce simple, creative tools for federations to address complex problems
Communities collect money, information and people and organise city-wide. This gives them the confidence to engage with local and national government, and leverage external resources to implement pilot projects to demonstrate solutions.
When the modest savings of thousands of people are brought together as ‘city urban poor’ funds, the federation can clearly see the benefits of organising at scale. The victory of one community is seen as a step forward for all, and strengthens their case in the eyes of the government.
- Regular meetings and exchanges at city, national and regional level, create space for knowledge-sharing, and build capacity and resilience
When communities come together to find a solution, they become aware of the knowledge, skills and resources available within that community. Individual household incomes are meagre but pooling them creates opportunities to negotiate and leverage external resources.
Federating locally, nationally and regionally opens many doors for urban poor communities in Asia and Africa, mobilising them to explore new opportunities and access new types of resources – impossible for individual communities and federations.
By doing their internal homework, informal communities can implement projects to show local and national governments that they can be part of the solution. In 2012, the government of Uganda changed its procurement rules to allow informal communities to bid for community-driven contracts. It also introduced a national, city and settlement forum which included local federation leaders.
Anything is possible when communities are organised
At a time of growing socio-economic and environmental vulnerability, resilient and organised local communities are an asset and a resource for cities. Building resilient housing and basic services, and managing densities and evictions, have been the focus of urban poor organisations like SDI and the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights over the last three decades.
Confronting challenges posed by the climate crisis, are opportunities for cities and communities to partner together. Climate experts are learning that technological solutions without people at their heart do not work.
What we have learnt from managing past crises is that preparedness starts long before a crisis, so building the organisational resilience of frontline constituencies should begin now. This long-term investment reduces the cost of loss and damage.
When communities build their collective capabilities from within, they improve and transform the nature of their relationship with their external environment. Today community networks across Asia, Africa and Latin America work alongside their city authorities.
Setting up urban poor funds creates opportunities for federations to control their own finances according to need, including for climate finance. A financial facility with relevant local actors and accountability can transform existing structures and relationships, redistribute power among local people, and keep informal communities at the heart of their own development.
