Sustainable and Inclusive Urbanization in Patna
Promoting Safe, Healthy and Inclusive Model for Slum Development in collaboration with Patna Municipal Corporation & United Nations Population Fund
Diksha Foundation is an implementing partner under United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) collaboration on the above project. The project seeks to transform the city of Patna as a socially inclusive city, where citizens have equal access to services and opportunities, and thereby focuses on the most vulnerable sections in the urban setting, namely Sanitation Workers and Slum Dwellers. The project seeks to empower the sanitation workers under Patna Municipal Corporation on health, safety and leadership, and seeks to work extensively with the Sanitation worker community, including women and adolescents whose habitation is primarily slums. The project has directly been working across 50 large slums of Patna. Now, the up scaling phase, “Sustainable and inclusive urbanization in Patna; Promoting safe, Healthy and inclusive models for slum development” aims to Reduce gender and health (including sexual and reproductive health) vulnerabilities in slums through citizen engagement in the development of slum by: Increasing the capacities of ward councilors on citizen engagement for gender and right based slum development, Empowering women and girls by collectivizing and engaging them to participate in gender and right based slum development activities, Improving health, safety and dignity of sanitation workers/manual scavengers by building their capacities on Health, safety and constitutional rights. Empowering girls and women from the sanitation worker/manual scavenging community to address health hazards through enterprise promotion.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PROJECT
- Completed training of around 6000 sanitation workers on health, safety, constitutional rights and leadership.
- Organized 53 vaccination camps in 46 slums of Patna, around 84000 people got vaccinated in these camps.
- Organized 39 health camp on sexual health and reproductive health covering 40 slums in collaboration with PMC & NUHM (National Urban Health Mission). A total of 2990 community people benefited.
- Organized 860 youth collective meetings, 429 women collective meetings, 432 joint collective meetings and 200 sessions with change agents.
- Organized 3 social action campaigns in 30 slums on issues Family Planning, Menstrual health & hygiene management. Asha and Anganwadi workers were also part of this campaign.
- Mobilization and on job training of 24 women on mechanized cleaning and registration of cooperative for the functioning of mechanized cleaning work.
- Setting 3 sanitary napkin packaging units in slums.
- Mobilization and selection of 15 women from slums for sanitary napkin packaging unit and 55 sanginis for sales of sanitary napkins.
Sanitation Workers
Communities/Slums
Youths
Women
Collective Action Campaign/Social Actions in Slums
As per the joint meetings conducted in the slum, we finalized activities like mobilization in the community to get people vaccinated, letter writing activity to identify the existing gaps in the basic amenities and sharing the complaint letter with the Patna Municipal corporation officials, engaging Asha & Anganwadi workers to capacitate youth and women on sexual and reproductive health.
Awareness campaign & mobilization for Covid19 Vaccination
In the month of January 2022, we organized vaccination camps in the community where our adolescent group mobilized people to get them vaccinated and it resulted in numbers and we were able to vaccinate 3464 people from 66 camps. For the same we also trained our youth group initially to strengthen their mobilization skill.
We organized a collective action campaign in 30 slums where they have to identify the existing development issues in the community. In this session youth, women and many community members participated and shared their problems and their problems that have been addressed with possible solutions.
Awareness Generation in Slums of Patna
To ensure sanitation and hygiene, Patna municipal corporation has planned to create awareness in slums. Initially we started this in our 10 focused slums on priority basis and conducted the awareness session. In the month of March, we distributed dustbins 3780 in 8 slums & reached out to the 1890 households so that they can develop the practice of segregating the waste generated in their houses from the source.
During distribution our team supported PMC in Swacchta Sarvekshan to get citizen feedback in making Patna clean and green. We submitted 2429 surveys with the help of our team.
Major Activities Covered!
Major activities done under this component are:
- Identification of the 5 new slum to develop as model slum
- Mapping of 10 slums for the existing gap analysis.
- Prioritized the area of development that includes drainage, toilet, water resources- hand pump, borewells, water pipelines, street light, community halls, land levelling and space for making park.
- Formation of slum monitoring group:
- Visit of PMC officials in the model slums
Slum Development
In this programme under UNFPA-PMC joint collaboration we have adopted a different approach towards slums and squatter settlements. As in Bihar Municipal Act, the strategy aims to incorporate Slums in the wider ambit of its plan to transform the city into an inclusive center by focusing on people centric slum development model namely, Slum Networking Plan. This plan seeks to transform (Rather than to eliminate) slums as a catalyst for positive urban transformation and a resource which can be used for the benefit of both slums and city.
Health Camp/Vaccination Camp
Organized 66 vaccination camps and total of 3464 people has got vaccinated from 64 slums of Patna. The focus group of this vaccination campaign was adolescent of the age group 15 to 18 years as this age group became eligible to get immunized recently as per the government new guidelines and the second focus group was people above 60 years of age, who became eligible for booster doses. Beside this we covered every individual who is not vaccinated yet in these communities.
Improving health, Safety and dignity of sanitation workers/manual scavenging Community
Sanitation workers provide an invaluable public service, vital to our daily lives and the environment. Yet they often work in conditions that expose them to the worst consequences of poor sanitation- debilitating infections, injuries, social stigma and even death on a daily basis.
In order to create awareness amongst the sanitation workers community we have chosen to work on capacity building of 5000 sanitation workers of health, safety and constitutional rights and empowering girls and women from sanitation workers to address health hazards through enterprise promotion.
Capacity Building of 5000 sanitation workers supervisory on health, safety, and constitutional rights
In order to enhance the capacities of all Sanitation Workers of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) on their health (including Covid appropriate behavior and vaccination), safety at work place, leadership quality and constitutional rights; a training programme was organized under the joint collaboration of PMC and UNFPA. During pandemic our Sanitation Workers are making Patna city Healthy and clean & constantly serving the people of Patna as frontline workers. And, therefore this training session was being conducted at the smallest unit in smaller groups of sanitation workers. We trained around 6000 sanitation workers of Patna Municipal Corporation in this process.
Promoting MHM in slums through enterprise
The menstrual hygiene management component aims to promote correct knowledge and product choices around menstruation. Three packaging units have been set up in three different slums of Patna with 30 women (15 women from slums who are trained on menstrual hygiene management and packaging skills and another 15 women who are trained on MHM, distribution and marketing skills
YOUTH AND WOMEN COLLECTIVE
Empowerment can be defined as a “multiple-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives. It is a process that fosters power in people, for use in their own lives, in communities and society by acting on issues that they define as important”. In the same way Women empowerment refers to women’s ability to make life choices as this has been denied in the past. We are referring to empowerment of women at individual, household and at community level by raising awareness.
We are working at slum level by collectivizing women and adolescent in our 50 slums and sessions have been taken on topics like menstrual hygiene awareness and waste management, domestic violence and its effect, and on the concept of SC/ST act, understanding gender-based violence, difference between gender and sex, family planning reproductive health etc.
Community Enterprises
Empowering girls and women from the sanitation workers community to address health hazards through enterprise promotion (Mechanized Cleaning).
The project envisages creating a pool of women cadre and pushing the enterprise equipped with Modern and scientific techniques to treat Solid liquid waste in urban areas. The objective was to train the women individuals from the sanitation worker community to provide sanitation services to Patna Municipal Corporation and later work as partner agencies. These promoted sanitation enterprises will eventually operate as self-sustainable institutions.
The project does not only support not only the environmental aspect but will also address social and economic concerns of the segment of people working as manual scavengers, hence it will provide a formal & organized environment to work that eventually will lead to financial stability with dignity.