WADA Project Summary

History of organization

WADA (Women’s Association for Development Alternatives) was started around 1993 by about 2-3 women in Delhi. The initial focus was on organizing seminars and workshops on civic and social issues such as pollution, domestic abuse, legal issues for the poor etc. They registered in 1996. Around 1999, they started focusing attention on two Jhugi Jhopdi (JJ) clusters (slum areas) in Delhi, one in Gautampuri Phase II and the other in Nagla Machi. They started one center in each of these clusters to work with the slum dwellers. These centers have activities involving various aspects of life in the clusters, from primary schools and vocational training to micro-credit and distribution of blankets and wools. The organization now has about 40 members, many of whom pay a lifetime membership fee of Rs. 2000 to join.

Background

The people living in these clusters are among the poorest sections of society. They are mostly migrant labourers working for daily wages, like sweepers, rickshaw drivers and mill workers. About one-third of these are refugees from Bangladesh and the majority of the remaining are from U.P. and Bihar. Each cluster has about 5000 families. The clusters lacked basic facilities like electricity and water before WADA started working here.

Activities

A detailed list of their activities can be found in the faxed document. Interesting projects are their family counseling sessions where they provide counseling for women with spousal abuse and other domestic problems. They have an informal micro-credit lending program (sums of the order of Rs. 1000-5000) for people with genuine needs. So far, the record of people returning the loans under this program, however, has been spotty. The distribution of blankets is a major component of their budget (not included in the budget in the fax). This costs about Rs. 50,000 a year. Other major components not included in the attached document are tailoring machines for the vocational classes which cost about Rs. 5000 per year and occasional festivities like Independence Day which cost about Rs. 20,000 per year.

Funding proposal

A donor has provided $1000 to Asha-Boston to be sent to this project. This sum was matched by the donor’s company. Hence, an amount of $2000 needs to be sent to the project. Before sending the money, Asha-Boston would like to verify that the project is genuine and in line with general Asha guidelines of secularism, emphasis on poor communities etc. This will be a one-time fund disbursement.

Site visit

A site visit will be conducted by Siva Athreya ().

Project contact

Mrs. Pratibha Kumar,

CII/10, BAPA Nagar,

New Delhi-110003.

Phone: 91-11-338-8900.

Project location

  1. Basti Vikas Kendra, Gautampuri Phase II, Under Income Tax Office (ITO) Bridge.
  2. J.J.Cluster, Nangla Machi Ring Road.

Asha-Boston project steward

Dilip Warrier ()

Attached documents

1. Fax from WADA with details about their activities.