ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at a programme which did not follow the traditional NGO model, but rather took a radical step in terms of the development approaches of an NGO working with marginalized communities. In this case it was an urban programme in the city of Pune in Maharashtra, the state immediately to the west of Karnataka, working with waste-pickers to support them to realize their rights. The radical difference was that from the very start, the model of intervention was that it was led by the aid recipients — the waste-pickers. Here the role of the local NGO, in this case the Centre for Continuing Education of the Women's University (SNDT), was akin to a seivice provider to the waste-pickers' own organization, the Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KXPKP) — from Marathi this translates as 'the association of waste-pickers in the city'.
