Building Home with Home Improvement Loans

Geeta lives in a one room house in Savda Gevra, a resettlement colony in Delhi, with her husband Vinod and four children. Her family was resettled from a makeshift hut in 2006. Geeta completed her masonry training from the Karmika School for Construction Workers that MHT had opened in Savda Gevra. 

Gita's family lived in a kutcha house, unable to afford the cost to rebuild it

When Geeta and her family moved to Savda, they used what little savings they had to construct a small kutcha house. They had a blue plastic tarp for roof. During the monsoon rains, Geetaben and her four children would huddle together trying to stay dry. Without a roof or any proper walls, her children were constantly falling sick. Like most houses in Savda, they had no water connection at house. Geetaben would wake up early every morning to lug heavy buckets of water from an erratic water tank. With no sewage lines built, Geetaben's family was forced to defecate in the open. They worried about the lack of privacy, potential night attackers and the dismal state of hygiene. After nearly five years, Geetaben and her husband decided to take a Rs 10,000 loan from MHT to construct an underground water pump beneath their house. It changed their lives.

Geeta no longer worries about water shortages or carries heavy buckets of water from the water tank. She feels better about the water quality and her children's improved health. Not wanting debt on their record and eager to apply for a housing improvement loan, the family repaid their loan in less than a year. In May 2012, after becoming a member of SMBT Geetaben applied for a Rs 60,000 home improvement loan from MHT to build a proper roof, a terrace and stairs leading to the first floor. MHT assessed Geeta's repayment capacity by evaluating her household income, assets, savings history, property papers, liens on property and borrowing track record. In addition, engineers from Awaas SEWA provided a cost estimate for Geeta's desired construction. Confident of their repayment capacity, MHT granted Geeta's family a Rs 60,000 housing improvement loan in June 2012. Trained as masons from the Karmika School for Construction Workers that is run by MHT in Savda, Geeta and her husband were able to construct the house themselves in one month without hiring any external laborers. Awaas SEWA engineers also helped Geeta and Vinod in their construction process by assisting with the design and negotiating the cost of materials with vendors. MHT disbursed the Rs 60,000 loan in phases according to the pace of construction, Awaas SEWA was responsible for monitoring the construction quality and pace and for signaling to MHT that the next loan installment should be disbursed.

Vinod works in a tube light factory and Geeta works as a mason. Their household income fluctuates between Rs 8,500 to Rs 10,000 a month. While a quarter of their income goes towards household expenses, they made sure to save around Rs 2,000 a month and pay back the loan. An MHT nameplate that read "This house is funded through a home improvement loan given by the Mahila Housing SEWA Trust" hanged on the front of Geeta's house until she repaid her loan.

Urban Poor Learning about Climate Change by Playing Snakes and Ladders

How many of us grew up playing the Snakes and Ladders game as kids?

The gathering of family around the colorful board, the rush of joy we got when climbing a ladder, and the disappointment when we got bitten by a snake, are memories that we always cherish.

Today, this age-old game is being used by Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT) - an NGO that aims to improve the habitat conditions of poor women in the informal sector - to impart messages on climate change, its adverse effects, and building climate resilience.

Lakshmi hails from a slum settlement in Bhopal called Garib Nagar. A community of 400 households, the area is severely affected by water-logging and vector-borne diseases during monsoons and water scarcity during summers. Uneducated and poor, Lakshmi was oblivious to the concept of climate change, although her community has been suffering through increasingly hot summers and heavy monsoons for years. Even after she was introduced to climate change through the community-level meetings, Lakshmi failed to link it to the water scarcity or frequent diseases that her community had to deal with. It was then that MHT introduced the Snakes and Ladders game.

On the 10x10 gridded board, the snakes represented consequences of climate change such as high temperatures and reduction in ground water levels that lead to illnesses and water scarcity. And the ladders represented ways to improve their lives by making thoughtful decisions on saving and investing money on availing themselves of water supplies and education. Lakshmi thoroughly enjoyed the game. In addition to that, she also learnt about the importance of saving money, making careful decisions and thinking ahead about the future of her family. Today she understands that, “saving money is important to move forward as the change in climate and unhygienic living conditions can cause life-threatening issues. I also focus on hygiene now and regularly uses water purification tablets to cleanse drinking water.”

Urban slum settlements like Lakshmi’s are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. However, the people remain completely unaware of the reasons behind the adversities they face and how they can address them. MHT uses simplified communication methods such as games, demonstrations, one-on-one meetings, videos, wall paintings and street plays to generate an interest in people and introduce the concept of climate change, its impacts and build climate resilience.

Introduced in 2016, the Snakes and Ladders game is played during training sessions and community level meetings in 105 slum settlements in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Through the game, around 3,500 women, who otherwise would not have had any knowledge about climate change or its impacts on their day to day lives, have come to understand the true reason behind unbearable summers and monsoons, and appreciate long-term planning, and focus on healthy living.

Another community member, Babitha, has also played Snakes and Ladders multiple times. She acknowledges that in addition to keeping her entertained during her free hours, the game has also improved her understanding about her own living conditions.

She said: “I have learnt that unpurified water can cause diseases, so we have to boil it before consuming to avoid illnesses. I also learnt how plants can help deal with the rise in temperature. I share everything I learn from the meetings with my husband, and have started planting trees in our yard.”

Introducing "vulnerability" to vulnerable people

“We need a cemetery,” came the united voice of residents of Nayi ki Thari, a slum in India’s city of Jaipur, when they were questioned about their top priority needs in meeting climate threats.

The message came as a shock for me, an environment practitioner working on climate change and seeking to extract information on how communities were coping with negative changes in the climate.

While climate change and its associated problems are gaining wider attention globally, the concept of vulnerability remains alien to those most at risk: the communities themselves. The most critical challenge is to transfer the science of climate vagaries to those whose resilience is at risk, particularly with limited access to climate information and information about potential risks.

What the community in Jaipur perceived to be the greatest climate challenge was not the recent floods in the area – the result of increasingly unpredictable rainfall – but the difficulties in carrying dead bodies to a cremation ground located 15 kilometers away, along unpaved and uneven roads that are ever worse when water-logged.

A large drain situated in the marshy soil of the slum often backed up and flooded, submerging the entire locality. Shockingly, children were even drowned during the last monsoon.

A number of communities said in focus group discussions they had observed significant changes in the weather patterns over time. However, 90 percent perceived these changes to be “due to grace of God” and had no clue how much human activity had contributed to the problem.

While most of the communities recognised that climatic changes would have an impact, none sensed that the problem would impact them, their livelihoods, and their lives the most, even as their contribution to the problem was the least.

Change starts with awareness. Working with communities to build adaptation to climate change, in isolation, is inappropriate if the lack of knowledge about climate change and its effects is not addressed alongside.

Now that we realize the low awareness levels of communities about climate-induced vulnerability, the need of the hour is to start initiating discussions and to equip them with the knowledge they need.

Without that, vulnerability could intensify, with the poor becoming poorer due to increased climate pressures, which the World Bank last year warned could push more than 100 million people into poverty by 2030.

The need to provide civic amenities and access to facilities is always a top priority when talking about the urban poor. But we must recognise that informal settlements are already exposed to multiple stresses and barriers. Before addressing climate challenges in the community, communities need to first have a comprehensive understanding of climate risks, before adaptation efforts get started.

Designing awareness tools and participatory risk assessment exercises in the form of creative games and shows can be an emphatic way to trigger in communities an awareness of their vulnerability to climate perils.

Emergence of this perception among communities has the potential to be a milestone in enabling individuals to cope with climate stresses or shocks and to plan for long-term resilience building.

As Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, rightly says , “Conversation often leads to transformations”. Getting communities talking about vulnerability would certainly transform the way they perceive their future challenges – and help them plan for adaptation.

Changing Lives in Informal Settlements

Sunder Nagri in Delhi is one of the largest resettlement colonies with 1000s of displaced urban residents. When the 50 or so initial households moved to Sunder Nagri, it was desolate and wild. Cut off from government services and infrastructure, residents were forced to wake up at 3:30 am and walk 2 to 3 kilometers to collect water for their cooking and washing needs. Diseases were rampant because of the lack of proper water and sanitation facilities. Many children died from jaundice, malaria and diarrhea and sickness became a part of their lives.

It was in 2009 that MHT began to organize community meetings at Sunder Nagri, through which the residents were educated about their rights to clean water, sanitation and better quality housing, and how they can access various government schemes for water and sanitation. Many of the women members were nervous about travelling alone to distant municipal offices, unsure of how to navigate complicated transport systems and respond to the questions from government officials. In order to solve it effectively, MHT organized a series of training sessions and arranged trips to local government offices, until the women gained the confidence to lead these visits themselves. Additionally, MHT also helped them obtain ration and identification cards, making them eligible for government infrastructure and housing schemes.

Later on, MHT also worked extensively to improve the water and sanitation conditions at Sunder Nagri. Recognizing an acute need for water connections, MHT began to offer loans for underground water pump and individual hand pumps. MHT also tackled the challenge of open defecation through disbursing loans for individual toilets. As a result, residents are now healthier, more productive and confident.

It was the availability of water that changed their lives significantly. One of the community members says, “We can now shower and wash our clothes and dishes whenever we want. We finally have free time. We don’t have to lug heavy buckets anymore or wake up at 3:30 am to fetch water."

Helping Communities Affected by Ahmedabad Rains

At 5.45 am on the 27^th of July, Meenaben woke up to a phone call from a slum settlement in Vrundavan Nagar in Ahmedabad. On the other end was Radhika, one of the beneficiaries of MHT, informing her that the entire slum that includes 205 households got flooded in the heavy rain overnight.

Meenaben, one of the Vikasini members, has been working with MHT for the last 17 years. Having been identified as a strong woman leader, Meenaben helps with MHT's works in 23 slum settlements in Ahmedabad to empower women to develop their habitats and build climate resilience. Since Meenaben has been working with the people of Vrindavan Nagar for around 12 years now, she became the first person for Radhika to call during a time of adversity.

Soon after she received the call, Meenaben visited the community to check their condition. She describes the situation as much worse than previous years. Since the area sits at a lower level than the recently built highway, rainwater from surrounding areas were logged in the slum. As a result, the water had gone inside their households, ruining vegetables and other foods, and people were using buckets to scoop the water out.

After verifying the situation, Meenaben called the Ward Councilor and the control room at Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) and requested for help. By noon, a team from AMC had come to Vrundavan Nagar. They pumped the water out and provided the families with food provisions.

Meenaben is glad that she is able to efficiently help the communities she works with. The trainings she received as a beneficiary of MHT continue to help her in making decisions that reap immediate and positive results. She stays in touch with the community to make sure their urgent needs are met.

MHT is Granted Millennium Alliance Award 2017

Initiatives in promoting sustainable energy consumption among the poor has won MHT the Millennium Alliance Award 2017. A network of Indian institutions that aims to promote innovative ideas to overcome development challenges, Millennium Alliance organizes yearly award ceremonies to honor impactful social enterprises in the country.

MHT receiving the Millennium Alliance Award

At the Round IV Award Ceremony that was held in Delhi this week, MHT was recognized for works in building climate-resilient communities with a focus on urban slums. Many slum dwellings in India are constructed with plastic covers and cement and tin sheets which absorb heat. As a result, these houses create hot and stuffy living conditions and make the inhabitants vulnerable to climate change risks. Moreover, the absence of proper light and ventilation make the families depend significantly on electrical lighting and cooling.

In order to better their living conditions and reduce energy consumption, MHT came up with the solution to

• educate families on nuances of energy usage such as bill calculation, appliance’s wattage consumption, changes in wiring to reduce energy wastage, and the use of renewable and energy efficient products
• promote customized green energy technologies such as solar lighting-cooling systems, CFLs, LEDs, stoves and innovative building technologies such as Roof Ventilation and ModRoofs
• support end-user financing with tailored loans and flexible collection, and
• provide after sale services

The project will yield a 10% decrease in household expenditure on fuel consumption. Reduction in energy costs will allow poor households to increase their spending on food, health and education. For home-based workers in slums, the improvement in light, ventilation and insulation will also lead to a 4 hours increase in daily working hours. With the grant received from Millennium Alliance, MHT aims to reach 2500 households in Bhopal through this initiative and help climb the energy ladder and use more efficient and sustainable products and services.

Bhumika Following on the Footsteps of Her Grandmother

Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT) aims at improving the habitat conditions of poor women in the informal sector. Since its establishment in 1994, MHT has worked with over 895 slums, reaching over 3,11,450 households. In an effort to bring up a generation of young women leaders with a passion to develop their communities, MHT involves adolescent girls from slum settlements in Ahmedabad to provide families with basic water and sanitation facilities. Bhumika, a 17-year-old, is one of the first adolescent girls to join the program. 

Bhumika was encouraged by her grandmother Jiviben to join MHT. Jiviben, who has been working with MHT for the last 18 years, helped improve the living conditions of around 150 households in her neighborhood. She says that it was her decision to be involved with the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and MHT that positively transformed her life and community. She learnt how to access government schemes for community development through MHT meetings and training sessions, and turned her slum, which had no light, water, toilets or pukka housings, into a neat area of colorful houses with tidily paved paths, individual toilets and water connections. Now at the age of 60, Jiviben is proud of the changes that she has brought in her community. She also educated her children, encouraged her daughters-in-law to study and work, and now supports her granddaughter in her involvement with MHT.

Bhumika started working with MHT before 9 months, when the program was initiated with the support of Dasra Giving Circle. She helps MHT with gathering women for meetings and conducting surveys. Since her grandmother has ensured that their community has necessary sanitation facilities, Bhumika took the initiative to study their neighboring localities where people still struggle to access basic necessities. She identified two slums where people defecated in the open and conducted surveys of 53 households. While conducting these surveys, she also educated the families about the Swachh Bharat Mission, a government campaign to keep cities clean and eliminate open defecation.

Bhumika dreams of becoming a teacher and educating her students on sanitation and hygiene practices that she has learned through MHT. A class 11 student, Bhumika is instilling hope for a better future for communities like hers in Ahmedabad. 

Women’s Actions towards the Sustainable Development Goals: Sow One Seed and Reap a Hundredfold

15 years ago, Fakira Tank Na Chapra in Ahmedabad was merely a slum with illiterate residents. Today, however, through the proactive and strenuous works of the Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT), the place has transformed into a formal apartment block with empowered women leaders. An Indian NGO that works for the betterment of habitat conditions of poor women living in slums, MHT began their work with Fakira Tank Na Chapra in 2002 by engaging the community through informative meetings about the slum networking project. As a part of the project, some women leaders were identified from the community who were then trained to actively interface with the government to improve their living conditions. In 12 years’ time, these leaders ensured that every family in the community received efficient water and sanitation services, electricity, paved roads, street lighting, and their own apartments. Safe and easier living conditions led to healthy and thoughtful community, where people found more time and opportunities for livelihoods and education.

Fakira Tank Na Chapra is one among 895 slum settlements from 7 Indian states that MHT has worked with thus far. MHT ensures that through its programs on Habitat Development, Climate Change Resilience and Participatory Planning and Governance, people in slum settlements have land rights and decent housing, clean water and sanitation, access to affordable energy, and empowered women leaders.



Through a focus on women led habitat development, MHT contributes significantly towards advancing United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Adopted in 2015, the 17 integrated and interconnected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) address various development issues ranging from ending poverty and hunger to improving health, education and environment, with a strong emphasis on sustainable urbanization.

Since the implementation of the SDGs, MHT helped 562 households to receive access to potable water and 114 households to get electricity, and installed 8,790 toilets and 2,330 sewers. Additionally, MHT also trained 1,825 female construction workers so they could access better work opportunities, counselled 4185 families on effective energy consumption, shared 3,894 energy efficient and renewable energy products with beneficiaries, and directly and indirectly helped 59,549 families to gain access to formal housings.



MHT’s works help realize several of the Sustainable Development Goals. They are SDG5: Gender equality, SDG6: Clean water and sanitation, SDG7: Affordable and clean energy, SDG8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, SDG10: Reduced inequalities, SDG11: Sustainable cities and communities, SDG 13: Climate action and SDG17: Partnerships for the Goals.



Access to a sound habitat makes the lives of poor people (especially women), healthier, easier and safer, enabling them to find time and opportunities for better livelihoods. As a result, these immediate results indirectly contribute to other SDGs such as SDG1: No poverty, SDG2: Zero hunger, SDG3: Good health and well-being and SDG4: Quality education.

MHT’s programs stand as strong examples of how contributing to one of the SDGs indirectly addresses other issues at hand. By focusing on 8 SDGs, MHT is indirectly contributing to 4 more of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Mahila Housing SEWA Trust Selected as a Winner of the Global Resilience Challenge

We are ecstatic to announce that we have been selected as a winning team of the Global Resilience Challenge! Out of nearly 500 applications submitted, the Mahila Housing SEWA Trust team (with 17 partners) was selected as one of eight winning teams. The Global Resilience Challenge is a multi-stage design competition designed to surface transformative resilience solutions to problems that threaten the lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable populations in the Sahel, Horn of Africa and South and Southeast Asia.

Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT) Team with 17 partners across South Asia will now receive up to $1 million in funding to implement our proposed solution in a way that can be scaled and adopted by others in the future. The solution MHT proposed, focuses on the 4 most pressing climate-related risks faced by the communities; heat waves, flodding, water scarcity and water and vector borne diseases. The proposed solution model would be community-based, women-led, integrated and partnership based, evidence based and will focus on the innovative communication strategies to promote community-level resilience actions.

"We are extremely happy to be the winners of the challenge. Through this challenge, we are aiming to build community-based climate resilience with a strong focus on women empowerment" said Bijal Brahmbhatt, Director of MHT.

For more information on this exciting announcement, visit http://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/blog/2015/09/27/winning-solutions-unveiled/

It is time to turn the tables…..

It is high time to turn the tables and let the people talk. That’s what I realized when Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT) first invited me to talk to some women leaders from slums in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India) on the issue of Climate Change. A talk which I thought would be quite easy turned out to be a daunting task when I realized I was talking to women who had no idea of Global Warming, Scenario Projections, not even Greenhouse Effect. And yet they were the ones I knew are to be the most affected by the impact of the changing climate. So I did what I knew best, asked the women what they were experiencing about the changing weather conditions. And voilà, the women not only knew what was happening, but were in their own ways developing mechanisms to cope with it.  It was very individual specific, often based on traditional knowledge, but it was working for them. This got me thinking, if just experience could help a group of women to fix so many problems, what could they not do if they had the requisite scientific knowledge, capacities and technologies. Can this be a way to develop actionable adaptation plans? To get solutions which are demonstrated on the ground, and which the world of poor will be ready to adopt because it would seem so real, so near to them.

I think the answer definitely is a YES.

BUT, and it’s a big but, how do we actually transfer this scientific knowledge to them. Climate science, is a very technical subject (or maybe we have made it so) and it felt very difficult to transfer the science to the lesser literate or often illiterate women. Again there is the complexity of inter-linkages and inter-connectedness between various issues, which needs to be understood before one takes decisions. A simple solution like a pond- which may seem very environment friendly and helpful in ground water recharge can be actually not so useful if the region is going to have high heat waves and thereby high evaporation rates and worst could be disastrous if the water pathways are highly contaminated especially with sewage and other solid waste as we could end up contaminating the ground water aquifer. This needs multi-disciplinary approach and so we needed a multi-disciplinary team to work together with each other and with the women to help them devise the most useful solutions.

AND, here came another challenge. Sectoral experts are often very possessive about their own subjects and not so open when comes to deviating from their said hypothesis. So it was important to develop a common framework which they could work on. This is easier said than done as we did not know how to develop this “COMMON” framework. That’s where I though the women could take the lead and they did. We exposed the women to the sectoral thinking, provided them with a few participatory tools to go back to their communities and understand the nuances and within a fortnight they were back, talking one-on-one terms with the experts, getting them on track if they deviated, suggesting localized/cheaper versions of technical solutions and working towards a common goal of people’s “LIVELIHOOD”, because that is at stake. As one Meenaben put it, “This is just about explaining to the community that what we should do now so that we can continue to live like this (read maintain this lifestyle) in the coming years also.” Such a simple definition of resilience and now we will be working jointly towards building capacities for the same.

So how did this happen and so soon. Does it provide some lessons for others? It definitely did for me. Firstly, I think it is important to begin work with communities which already have a higher social capital, preferably groups which have worked on governance issues before. They have a perspective and understand the necessary riggings to pull through such a complex problem. It also helped that the group we are dealing with has a previous experience of using GPS and mobile technology in their work. Secondly, women having a larger stake show higher acceptance of tougher decisions. Our women were talking of water meters and carbon tax for vehicles- quite radical considering we are talking of slum communities here. Thirdly, when you talk of adaptation, the solutions are getting designed from a mitigation perspective also. This surprised me, by the way, but it seems easier when you are talking of protecting people to get them to protect the environment. Even though we did not think so the women were talking of bio-diversity and the need to conserve the same in cities. Also, there are many solutions already existing on the ground, a lot of traditional (and even modern) knowledge available which we need to document and invest in for scaling. The communities have a lot to learn from each other and this becomes very fruitful when we get people talking who now are facing opposite climate conditions. So we had women from Jaipur and Ahmedabad (traditionally water scare areas) teaching water management techniques to women from Ranchi (which has high rainfall but is now becoming water scarce) while the latter reciprocated with their traditional knowledge of combating heat stress. And the last but not the least, there was the benefit of developing localized cheap coping mechanisms which can have multiple affects. I would end with this simple solution shared by the women, “Cover your roof with wet paddy husk and enjoy a cooler home. Buy it before the summers and sell it after the first rains and get most of your money back. It is simple, effective and affordable.” There have been many strong technical suggestions too, our sectoral experts now have a lot of work on their hands, customizing these for adoption, but they are very enthusiastic, as they know, this time people will also listen to them, as they are listening to the people.

By Dharmistha Chauhan, Strategic Advisor to Mahila Housing SEWA Trust.  Dharmistha is a development consultant with 15 years of experience working in India for promoting Sustainable Livelihoods of women, farmers and informal sector workers.

Director Speaks

Earlier this year our Director Bijal Brahmbhatt was featured in 'Women of Pure Strength' -second  edition of a coffee table book by the Vodafone Foundation. The Book chronicles efforts of 50  dynamic women in their contribution to our diverse socio-economic milieu. 

The book was launched by boxing champion MC Mary Kom at an event in Delhi. 

Bijal Brahmbhatt's 'Women of Pure Strength' Story

She has single-handedly brought the Mahila Housing Trust to where we are today. We decided to publish here her full interview. It is, after all, also the story of MHT.

Give us a brief account of your journey; from where you started to where you have reached today

In 1992 I graduated as a civil engineer, however like most Indian youngsters, with no idea of the road map I wanted to follow, for my future career and life. I spent some time, exploring and experiencing a variety of things, including teaching prospective engineering students. Those were the days when a woman’s presence on construction sites was unheard of. I took that up as a challenge, and just to prove that women engineers could be as competent in execution onsite, for two years I worked with a private firm, executing projects, handling the workers and quite often, hearing some very crude personal remarks, behind my back. My academician father who was also very involved in the voluntary sector introduced me to Ms. Renana Jhabvala of the Self Employed Womens’ Association (SEWA) in 1998. She immediately proposed, that I work with the “Mahila Housing SEWA Trust, (MHT) an autonomous organization promoted by SEWA, to work on habitat related issues of poor women. Because the SEWA experience showed that for a poor woman, her house is her workplace, her storehouse, her godown and her productive asset. MHT was a nascent organization with only three years into its inception. I get nostalgic when I go down the memory lane, and recollect myself as an enthusiastic, inexperienced and ordinary engineer, who joined MHT in 1998. The initial experiences made me unlearn all that I had learnt from my formal education. MHT was working in three slums in Ahmedabad, with two other staff besides me. We had only one programme- Providing Basic services to the urban poor, with presence in a single city, Ahmedabad, our headquarter. There was no blue print to follow. SEWA leadership was extremely busy and  habitat was a complex subject, specifically because it is a huge endeavour in terms of asset  building and in urban areas, issues of tenure are quite complex . The idea was to go completely by the demand of the poor women.

Today, MHT has a staff of 72 employees, with over 3000 grassroots volunteers. Our work has expanded to six states some of which are very poor, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Delhi, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.

The portfolio of our work has expanded to seven areas:

1. Basic Services for Urban poor.

2. Affordable Housing and Land Rights.

3.  Housing and Infrastructure Finance.

4. Urban Governance.

5. Energy and Climate Change.

6. Rural Housing, Water and Sanitation

7. Shelter based livelihoods.

So far we have changed the quality of life of 3,04,545 families, over 15,00,000/ poor individuals across the  Nation. MHT is also beginning its work in South –Asia region, in December 2015.

My relationship with MHT has been symbiotic; I have had a major role to play in all MHT’s initiatives. Graduating from a coordinator, to the director of the organization, I have become an expert in slum upgrading, renewable and efficient energy. Land rights for the poor, Housing Finance, Development of public –private peoples partnership etc.

Some of the MHT initiatives which have had received worldwide recognition under my leadership are:

The Slum Networking Project:

MHT has assisted the poor women in forging innovative partnerships, with the urban local bodies to reach improved housing and basic services including water and sanitation to over 1,94000 individuals. The Government has contributed Rs. 57,852,349/- with a matching contribution from the communities to the tune of Rs. 316,209,283/- Biogas and Eco san toilets have been promoted. MHT has been able to master the art of establishing local partnerships and taking them to a national level across six states in India. One such partnership in the “SLUM NETWORKING PROJECT” with the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has received the Dubai Best Practices International Award in the year 2006.

Global showcase for slum electrification:

MHT has empowered Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in Ahmedabad, who worked with a private sector company to get legal electricity for all the slum dwellers of Ahmedabad. A slum electrification department was established at the company and pro-poor systems were created and institutionalized. All the poor households at Ahmedabad now are legally electrified. (Approximately 1, 58,000). This programme has been quoted as a global showcase by USAID in the energy sector.

AWAAS SEWA PVT LTD: A poor women’s social enterprise for market based low income housing

This social enterprise has been established as a special purpose vehicle for market based housing. MHT along with the women has become a pro poor market based developer for low income housing. The pilot project has been facilitated by Ashoka.

Incremental Housing Finance: 

Most MFI’s lend less than Rs. 1,00,000 to the poor for housing. The Housing Finance Companies which lend for low income mortgage beyond Rs. 5,00,000. However, the current need of the poor is the missing middle category of “Rs. 1,00,000 to Rs. 3,00,000 lakh”. MHT has developed an innovative tool “semi formal mortgages” to determine the security of tenure and give loans to the poor in that category. MHT along with SEWA Bank and other institutions has facilitated loans to over 50,000 poor women.

MHT has been nominated on the following committees of the Government, where I represent MHT, 

     Appointed as a consulting expert by the Gujarat Urban Development Authority for            Urban Poor Programs

   Member on the expert committee for the Rajiv Awas Yojana of the Government of Gujarat

   On the guiding committee of Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation for implementing JNNURM

     Task Force Member, Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) task force for Affordable Housing

    Steering Committee Member, Affordable Housing and Poverty Alleviation for 12th five year plan, Planning Commission

    HUDCO and the National Housing Bank work very closely with MHT in formulating their pro-poor programs.

In 2012 we were recognized by Dasra among the top ten organizations at the national level doing effective water and sanitation for the poor. In 2014 we received the Asia Urban Futures award for “Urban Resilience”. In October 2014 the CNN International in its “Transformation” series showcased the Slum Networking Project of AMC and MHT.

In 2013 I was felicitated by “Women Change Makers” for my contribution to Women’s Empowerment.

DBS Private limited, a builder in the affordable Housing Market has appointed me on their advisory committee.

My work has been recognized by the SEWA Group of organizations, by appointing me on the Board of Directors of several organizations, specifically to mention SEWA Grih Rin Pvt.ltd. (a national level housing finance company) and Awaas Sewa Pvt .ltd. (a construction company for the building for the poor.)  Thus I have grown personally and professionally with the organization.

       

     What are the singular challenges that you have faced in this journey?

   

     The challenge at the Government level is to sensitize it, change its approach and bring in transparency and accountability. At the lower levels in the Government, it is difficult to explain that MHT is not a mere construction contractor. The tremendous effort required to be put in to translate change from policy level to the grassroots is a real challenge.

     Regulatory   restrictions have also been a deterrent for eg. Credit cooperatives are the best financial entity suited to finance but there are severe restrictions on its geographic expansion. Thus organizations like MHT are always in a dilemma whether to have a more pro poor operational structure, or have a structure (Like a Company), which is not necessarily most appropriate for the poor, but gives scale.

     Financial sustainability is one of the biggest challenges, along with maintaining the scale that MHT has already achieved. Also managing the relationships between the diverse natures of staffing at MHT, sensitization of new staff to maintain the organizational philosophy and ethos, at the same time delivering the targets to the donors has been a struggle.

     Learning to work successfully with the private sector is a challenge.

     On a personal level, maintaining the balance between personal and professional life has always been a challenge.

      Has being a woman helped or hindered your path to success?

Being a woman has been a mixed bag of feelings. I joined a woman’s organization which was run, owned and managed by the women. Especially it had the SEWA ethos where feminism was celebrated along with the ethos of mother hood and woman hood. Children were allowed at work and a favorable environment   was created where the women colleagues irrespective of caste, creed shared their work as well as difficulties and learnt to celebrate woman hood.

At the government level, the functionaries initially underestimated your abilities hindrances were less due to underestimation, which later on turned to respect and awe.

It was however a bit difficult when men and women of your immediate neighborhood were curiously asking questions, due to odd work hours, and frequent travel. Safety issues become a concern when you had to travel all alone to very remote, unknown areas.

However overall the journey has been very fruitful and one which help me shed my own inhibitions.

       Does a supportive family, spouse, or social network help in a woman's career? How?

Yes, a supportive family and spouse definitely helps a woman’s career. I believe that women are creators. The virtue of patience and perseverance gives them the ability to nurture growth. The growth could be of any kind. It could be within the family as well as in her work. She has the ability to multi task. However, the support of the family, specially spouse and the social  network enhance these abilities manifolds.

A caring spouse, who takes the responsibility of the children, and is supportive to odd working hours sets her mind at ease. A word or two of appreciation about her work, makes her all the more determined   to face the challenges of her career and home. A free mind adds to her productivity and efficiency     

     Was there a specific incident that helped shape your career or an incident that inspired you greatly?

Rather than a single event, I should say that, there have been several occasions and personalities which have shaped my career. During the course of my work I was in touch with some of the very senior women leadership at SEWA, who were on the board of MHT. They were leaders who had very high educational qualifications, in some of the very reputed universities of the world, including the Harvard and Yale. However, they had dedicated their entire lives to the cause of women’s movement. Had they led a normal life, their training would have fetched them huge financial  gains. They decided to give that up and be with the movement, taking only a small honorarium to help them sustain themselves, being true with the Gandhian Philosophy.

They helped me respect a woman’s role in entirety, including the beauty of being a mother, visa vis the typical picture that I had in my mind about women’s empowerment , which was created by the corporate sector. They inculcated a leadership quality in me which believed in creating, rather than destroying, to go ahead.

The other major source of inspiration have been those thousands of grassroots leaders, who despite being uneducated and poor, have strived relentlessly to change their life, thus empowering the movement and  their own life and families. They helped me understand that leadership was a quality that came from within and therefore had less to do with education or social background.

       

     What according to you is leadership and how is the definition of leadership changing for women?

Leadership according to me is having a mission in life, believing in it, enabling the masses to believe in the mission and having the vision to create a path, which leads towards the fulfillment of the mission. Leadership also should enable a change for the better. A leader leads by example.

For women, the challenge is to create a women’s movement. A movement where economic enterprises and other organizations are of the women, for the women and by the women. Enterprises which help women alleviate poverty, which bring in her voice, increase her bargaining power and visibility, thereby building her leadership and self reliance.

   

    Which leadership qualities do you think have helped shaped your career and distinguished you as a woman leader?

Personally I am a down to earth, honest, forthright and a loyal individual. I also believe in taking risks. The environment at MHT has inculcated in me, a spirit of questioning, and willingness to learn at any age. As a leader, I have understood the changing trends in the sector, very early on, and molded the organization accordingly. I have led the organization by example.

The intention of taking challenges and risk has also brought a national scale to our programme. I believe that innovative thinking supported by effective management systems is the key to growth. I also very strongly understand that cadres of leadership have to be built to start and sustain development.  I have been doing so, decentralizing the leadership and building joint cadres of leadership of grassroots women with professional women, bringing in sustainable development.   

      

        How have you balanced your professional and personal life?

I married and started a family, almost at the time I started my work with the Mahila Housing SEWA Trust. The organization was nascent then, that gave me some time with my family. I have two children, both of them very young when I started my career. I used to give more time to them then. Also my work at the Mahila Housing SEWA Trust was very new and thus not very demanding. To my husband and his family, the concept of the developmental sector was very new. The concept of development to them was more welfare oriented, rather than the empowerment approach at SEWA. My working hours were not the traditional “office time”, but suited to the needs of the grassroots poor women. Sometimes I had to go early in the morning, or late in the evenings to hold meetings in the villages and slums. During riots and disasters like earth quakes, while most women would prefer to stay at home, we had to work longer hours. Slowly and patiently I worked on them to make them understand my work and my view points. My Husband, then brought up, as a typical middleclass Indian male, not used to take care of the household chores, started supporting me, to the best of his abilities.

The task of balancing my personal and professional life has been achieved through multiple strategies. Firstly, making my children strong and independent. Secondly, increasing my own management abilities at work and at home. Thirdly at the organizational level, building the cadres of leadership which would support me and to whom I could rely on, to pass the responsibilities. The work hours, though long were flexible. While my family slowly learnt to manage itself, I spent quality time with them, always being there through all the important milestones of their education, and life and during all the emergencies.

     

        What gives you the biggest sense of achievement?

My biggest sense of achievement comes from watching hundreds of thousands of women, joining the movement of poverty alleviation, the movement of women’s leadership and self reliance and relentlessly battling the odds to improve their habitats, their work, and thereby their quality of life

Finally, we sign off this post with our post-event office celebration.
Co-incidentally our Vodafone 'World of Difference' Volunteers were around to celebrate too.

Proudly,

Team MHT

For 2  months, the Mahila Housing Trust hosted Vodafone Foundation - World Of Difference volunteers Dipika Majumdar from Kolkata and Ankit Jain from Pune. We invited the corporate to learn about our internal processes and suggest changes. It was an eventful journey for all of us. Coming from the world of IT & Communications they helped us share our work in a manner that will make us more inviting, more interesting..

In the end, it was a transformation, for us all. A fruitful NGO - Corporate partnership if we may say so.

Here's what they did for us...

We are extremely grateful to the duo for them.