ABSTRACT
The comment was made by Alka Sesha, one of the founders of Magic Bus. My uncharacteristic silence was caused by the shock of my first visit to Dharavi, the Mumbai slum that subsequently featured in the film Slumdog Millionaire. As part of a project to develop a monitoring and evaluation manual I had arrived in India having visited the Mathare slum in Nairobi — one of the largest and poorest slums in Africa, with a population of about 500,000 people living in an area of two kilometres by 300 metres (1.2 miles by 0.2 miles). It is a maze of low, rusted iron-sheeting roofs with mud walls. Housing is wholly inadequate, with most houses measuring about eight feet by six feet and holding up to ten people. Few houses have running water, open gutters of sewage run throughout, the road infrastructure is extremely poor, refuse and litter dominate the area and the local authority provides few services. My visit to Mathare shocked me deeply, but it did not prepare me for Dharavi. In my report to my funders (UK Sport) I stated:
My expression when we visited Dharavi was that we had ‘descended into hell’ — it was like the last stages of the journey up the river in the film Apocalypse Now. The people live in indescribable conditions, with an average household of five in 15–20 square metres, they are packed extremely close together with very narrow pathways providing access. These pathways are so close there is little light and no privacy, or space for children to play. It is estimated that 25 to 35 per cent of children work six—seven hours per day in zari factories/garbage picking/selling utensils.
