Magic Bus
Today the delegation went to see the project „Magic bus“. This NGO was originally a bus transporting volunteers to the children in the slums of Mumbai to play with them. The project grew over the time and there are now multiple institutions distributed all over India. The project aims at guiding kids through the difficult age of 7 to 16 years and teaches them basic characteristics like fairness, leadership or gender equality. The project the delegation visited reaches over 500 kids daily. These kids are guided by Magic bus staff, some of which were residents of the slum as well.
Spending the morning near the area of “Ray Road” playing soccer and other sportive group activities, every delegation member tried his/her best to help winning the game. For the delegation members, this morning was a great experience that will certainly stay in their memories for a long time.
(Article by Andreas Kurer and Martin Schaub)
–
Slum Tour
After passing a joyful but at the same time exhausting morning with the children of the project Magic Bus, the delegation got the unique chance to visit Mumbai’s biggest slum: Dharavi. 55 percent of Mumbai’s population lives in slums of which approximately 85 percent recognised by the government and hence considered to be legal. Dharavi consists of a population of around 1.4 million.
In this slum, an annual turnover of an astonishing 650 million US Dollars is generated, mainly by industrial activities such as aluminium melting, recycling of plastics, leader fabrication or bakery. The slum is divided into two parts, an economic part and a residential part. Latter has a two-religion population; Hindu and Muslims. After the riots in 1992 that resulted in 700 death only in Dharavi, the situation has calmed and both live next to each other peacefully. The slum itself can be considered as an entire economy as such. Everything that is needed for living is available within this boarder – even schools, hospitals and banks.
Apart from the industrial part, the residential part was very impressive as well. Very tiny aisles of a width of not more than a meter and loosely hanging electricity cables were a great adventure to walk through. Nevertheless, the future of the slums in general in quite unsure, as some investors would like to use the space for building great shopping malls.
(Article by Yanick Steiner and David Stutz)