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India:  That place of mystery and enchantment,  and up and coming economic powerhouse.  That place where we see American and European companies moving their call centers and software technical support offices.  We read of countless University graduates that are moving India forward into the 21st century.  We see sharp and bright middle class young people enjoying the good life.  More and more they want to remain in their beloved India where they can live in comfort and in prosperity.

There is another India, that one sees not too often.  The India that has been passed by the roaring economic engine of success.  That is the India of the small villages where one simply ekes out a living.  There is the India of the slums of Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta.  There is the India where poverty still rules, where the winds of AIDS are whipping up a  storm and where life is brutally harsh. 

Bawana and Holambi Kalan - Resettlement Camps - another word for Slums - Government Created:

Rural Areas of the world such as  found India are often home to the poorest of the poor.  Its residents dream of a better place to live, they hear stories of the cities where jobs can be found and money can be made.  They want to provide a better life for their families and themselves. They venture off in search of a  better tomorrow only to find suffering and despair in one of the slums of New Delhi. They have no money to begin with and the system forces them to live on public property erecting some kind of dwelling made from crude material. If they can find work,  it is often less than a dollar a day. 

Governing powers ignore the needs of the poor and that has certainly been evident in the Delhi area. The government saw a slum of 40,000 homes on the Yamuna river.  A slum that had existed for many years.  Greed and a desire to better the appearance of the area, to erect a sport facility for  the upcoming Commonwealth Games caused them to evict all families and to simply demolish 40,000 homes.

The Supreme Court of India stated "poverty could not be an excuse for living in slums" and that, "nobody forced you to come to Delhi... if you are occupying public land, you have no legal right to stay there a minute longer..."  Thousands, their rights bulldozed away, moved into re-settlement slums created in the middle of nowhere, away from any jobs they might have had in Delhi.

Traditionally the people living in slums were seen as thieves, crooks, prostitutes and simply people whose Karma locked them into their present  circumstance. Most people live and die in the slums and yet as in the case of Yamuna it is the only home they have.

This destruction of the Yamuna slum  took place in the shortest period of time and it's inhabitants were trucked to resettlement camps such as Bawana and Holambi Kalan 40 kilometers from where they used to live and work .  60,000  people exist there in squalid conditions, 15,000 are under eight years old.  Going to work, going to Delhi where they used to live and work, takes hours just to go on three different buses and on top of that costs 50 rupees.  They might make 3 to five dollars a day, but half would be used in transport, and then there are the hours spent coming and going.

One might think that schooling will improve the standard of living,  causing young people to have a future with hope, but government schools can only facilitate 3000 children and there are 15,000 children below the age of eight.

Water, sanitary facilities, all a dream, you have to pay for them. The place is surrounded by streams of raw sewage, houses in the low lying areas even flooded with sewage.  Shelter for most is lacking since they did not have the resources to buy building material.  Bawana is a place where people are living without dignity and hope.  Here or there you can find a water pump, but to drink from it?...  One has to be quite desperate and the people of the slums are...and the results are often disastrous.

Medical care barely exists, but most cannot afford it, so children die of diseases that simple soap and water could so easily prevent and less medical care would be needed if the attention was on clean water and sanitation.

The need seems overwhelming and yet there are people who choose and enter the slums such as Bawana and do something about the need at hand.  There are men and women who do not throw up their hands and give up. Instead they use what they have to alleviate the suffering they see. 

Is there a way out of the slum, or is there a way life can be better in the slum?   The only way out is through education and job training allowing people to have jobs that give them a sense of purpose.  Ambassadors of Hope International is making a difference  in the slum of Bawana...one person at a time.

This excellent Video give you a background to the present situation at both Bawana and Holambi Kalan Slums

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