ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the use of legal empowerment strategies by women paralegals in Delhi's Ambedkar Camp to ensure adequate, safe and inclusive housing in their informal settlement. The chapter describes the history, composition and unplanned growth of the community and its resulting form and legal status. It details the six-year journey of legal empowerment undertaken by women trained as community paralegals, and shares the impacts and lessons learned from their long-term advocacy with state agencies. It explores the role of participatory decision-making within the community — including the different forms it took, and how points of internal tension and unity have evolved over time. The authors describe how the community undertook participatory planning, with support from technical experts, to collaboratively create a plan for in situ upgrading of their settlement. The role of the paralegals in ensuring a shared understanding of the technical spatial mapping process was central to this effort, which also allowed the paralegals to mobilize the wider community and campaign for inclusive and representative settlement planning. The chapter concludes with reflections on ongoing advocacy efforts aimed at implementing the upgrading plan, and how government agencies have been able to accommodate or respond to the community's vision and priorities.
