Women Lead Change for the Poor in Nepal Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit NEPAL: Women Lead Change In Slum Settlement By Ramyata Limbu PATAN, Nepal, May 18 (IPS) - At 30, an age when most Nepali women are married and raising families, Nani Hera Shahi has more important things on her mind. Her motto, 'first drainage then marriage', has succeeded in changing the face of Lonhla - a slum neighbourhood in the heart of the ancient city of Patan - transforming it from a medieval slum to a clean, habitable settlement. A cheerful, robust woman, Nani Hera is the driving force behind the change that has affected this low-caste neighbourhood about 10-minutes walk away from Patan Durbar Square, one of Nepal's much-visited World Heritage Sites. Over the past two years, she has been busy ensuring that her neighbourhood gets a complete face-lift. Open sewers have been replaced by underground ones and toilets have been built in 25 homes. A brick-laid road, built at the initiative of locals, is almost complete. ''A couple of more days and it will be ready,'' says Nani Hera. Seated on a straw mat outside her house, she watches as women from the neighborhood carry soil and help lay bricks between the two rows of 42 homes that make up the Shahi 'tole' or neighbourhood. Butchers by trade, the Shahi women run meat shops while the menfolk seek odd jobs in the city for extra income. ''After closing our meat shops in the mornings, the women all pitch in to help,'' says Nani Hera. ''Each house has contributed 300 rupees and physical labour.'' Drainage installed, toilets built, and the road almost complete, plans of marriage are still far from her mind. Undaunted by the criticism of high caste Newars living around the area, Nani Hera has set her sights on a club for her community. ''We need a common place to meet, to discuss plans. Marriage can wait,'' she says. As the Shahis, low-caste Newars, are not welcome in the higher caste neighbourhoods of the predominantly Newar town of Patan, a club of their own would enable them to meet and discuss community affairs. ''Lonhla locals have come a long way,'' says Ganga Dongol, a community worker at Lumanti, a support group for decent shelter that works with Kathmandu's urban poor. The organisation comprising agronomists, planners, trainers, architects, sociologists, geographers and social workers, is helping communities build their capacities. Established in 1993, it supports implementation of savings and credit schemes and works with communities to upgrade settlements, and to deal with problems of human settlements in urban areas. Getting communities to work together is a major challenge. It took Dongol numerous visits over a period of six months to build a rapport with Nani Hera and her Shahi community. ''They were extremely sceptical at first. They thought nothing could change, that the unsanitary conditions they lived in were part of a normal existence,'' says Dongol. Today, Lonhla's women run their own Savings Group, organise classes for the neighbourhood children, and run adult literacy classes. ''A couple of years back, you'd never recognise the place. It was so filthy. We didn't have underground sewage, animals would be wandering around. During the monsoons it was impossible to walk through the neighbourhood,'' says Lonhla elder Jit Bahadur Shahi as he observes the activity outside his home. His wife and three daughters-in-law, all members of the local women's Savings Group, are lending a hand in paving the road over the underground sewer system. ''I help to supervise the work and keep the children away,'' says 72-year-old Shahi, witness to the rapid urbanisation that has taken place in Patan. As open, agricultural land once used by the Lonhla locals as toilets were replaced by concrete buildings, finding a private spot to defecate became difficult. ''It was especially hard for the women, extremely embarrassing,'' says Nani Hera. ''Everytime I felt the urge to go to the toilet, it was torture. I felt people were watching from the buildings around.'' With one of the fastest rates of urbanisation in Asia, 6 to 7 percent per annum, immense pressure on Nepal's urban fabric has led to disparities in human development. Migration to the cities, haphazard urbanisation, lack of urban management has resulted in many slum dwellings like Lonhla and an increasing number of squatter settlements. Studies by the non-governmental Lumanti indicate that Kathmandu's squatter settlements have grown from 17 in 1985 to 47 in 1997. An indication of the country's rapid urbanisation is the growth of municipalities - 36 to 58 in 1996. ''The lack of a national shelter policy, non-existent housing policies has resulted in an increasing number of people settling on marginalised land around Kathmandu,'' says Prafulla Man Singh Pradhan, Lumanti member and an expert on urban issues. ''This has correspondingly led to an increase in the number of the city's urban poor.'' (END/IPS/rl/an/99) (c) 1999 IPS ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytas-06.04.99-08:09:37-3206