Stories of Engaging in Land Rights Issues from Servants to Asia's Urban Poor.
Servants is a network of faith-mission
communities committed to living and working holistically with the poor
The first story is of 'John and Kelly Smith and the Bullah Slum*'.
A few years ago John
and Kelly decided it was time for them to respond to the needs of the poor more
personally, more practically. So they decided to go with Servants to
In 1999 John and
Kelly and their young son Tom moved into the Bullah
slum, built on government land along the bank of a drainage canal.
They found a little
hut and settled in alongside 900 hundred other families.
Over the next couple
of years John and Kelly immersed themselves in the life of the slum, living
alongside the slum-dwellers, learning their language and culture, and
developing dozens of reciprocal relationships.
On
John called several
community meetings to discuss the eviction. After hearing anyone who wanted to
contribute, the people decided they need-ed to get 1)
a stay order until winter was over, which would give them time to raise the
deposit to buy new land in the relocation area; 2) legal title to the new land
before the relocation took place, and 3) legal entitlement to new land for all
people in the slum who owned huts.
John, who is a lawyer
by training, had identified a group of local lawyers who could take the case to
the Delhi High Court. He liaised between the representatives of the slum and
the lawyers and, eventually, together they got the backing of the court for the
slum-dwellers basic demands.
During the hearings,
a judge asked for a list of the families in the slum, and the council refused
to make their list available. So John and his friends in the slum had to embark
on the huge logistical task of making another list of all the families in the
slum.
Kallu was one of John’s
friends in the slum who'd offered to help. And the two of them, with the help
of their friends, set about the task of collecting all the information. Kallu's hut became the centre of operations, documenting
everyone's name, ration card, hut number, and entitlement.
After weeks of hard
work, Kallu and John eventually got an up-to-date
list together that helped ensure the entitlement of a dozen or more families
who were eligible but would have otherwise missed out in the allotment
.
One day John was
dropping his son Tom off at school, when he saw liter-ally
hundreds of armed police in riot gear getting ready to forcefully clear the
slum. John borrowed a friend's mobile phone and contacted everyone he knew in
order to stop the provocation, and the inevitable violence that would result
from the fighting that would follow the police action. Fortunately, at the last
minute, the police force was recalled to barracks and the relocation was
deferred.
Subsequently John and
his friends were able to negotiate the peaceful relocation of the people, in
the end getting land entitlements for more than eighty per cent of the
slum-dwellers - some 750 families.
However, the people
discovered there was no water, no electricity, next-to-no transport, and their
new land was three to five feet lower than the road, so when it rained, it
flooded, and became a dirty great big swamp!
John and his friends
had to go back to court with the lawyers time and time again to make sure that
the level of the land was built up, drinking water was provided, and
electricity was put on. There are still not enough buses. So the struggle goes
on.
In the meantime John
has contacted local agencies and negotiated the provision of small loans to
help the people start some small businesses.
John is now writing a
brochure on relocating slum-dwellers, in the hope of it being used to inform
people of their rights in future forced relocations.
John's story is a
good example of simple, practical, heart-felt, hands-on, grass-roots care for
some of the most marginalised people on earth. And I hope that there will be many who read this
story who will decide to join John and Kelly and their friends in the urban
slums of
But not all of us
will be able to pack up our bags and join a team in Manila
The second story is of 'Peter Norton and the Cabramatta Gardens'.
Peter, and his wife
Adrienne, wanted to go to work in
When they arrived in
Cabramatta, Peter and Adrienne joined Urban Concern, a faith-community linked
to Servants - not only overseas, but
also back home, in our own backyard. Through Urban Concern Peter and Adrienne
were introduced to Cabramatta and soon got to know not only the Vietnamese but
also the Cambodians - and refugees from Former Yugoslavia as well. The whole
world was on their doorstep!
In late 1999 Peter
and his friends began to discuss the idea of 'doing something together' in the
community. By January 2000 the idea of 'doing something together' in the
community had resolved itself into the idea of 'a community garden'. In
February 2000 the Hughes Street Playground had been identified as the preferred
site. And in April 2000 a formal proposal was submitted to lease a portion of
Hughes Street Playground as the site.
Now the Hughes Street
Playground was a notorious place. It had been taken over by the 'smack squad' a
long time ago. But Peter and his friend Jeremy thought it was the perfect place
for local people to begin to take back some of their space and put it to good
sustainable community use.
They not only got
permission to use
And they got together
with a group of local representatives over a twelve-month period to work out
the details as to how to proceed with the project.
The group came up the
idea of having an 'Open Day', to share the dream of the garden with the
community, and to invite people of various ethnic backgrounds - especially
those people on the ‘margins’ - to join in and work on the project together.
Invitations were
given out in seven different languages through community radio and a letter-box
drop, and about two hundred people turned up for the 'Open Day' in March 2001.
Ninety filled in forms with their suggestions.
In June there was an
excursion to other community gardens round town. In August there was a training
day on 'organic gardening'. And in October
there was the first
on-site work-day. So by December 2001 the first eight plots were planted - and
by January 2002 the first crops were harvested.
And by July 2002 all
twenty-three plots had been completed and allocated.
The construction of
the garden has been dependent on the people in the project who are prepared to
work for benefit of the whole garden, not just their own patch. And a committee
of three people has been elected from each of the three language groups
represented to manage the project.
The garden has been a
great success on a number of significant levels.
It has restored the
park. The play area that had fallen into disuse is now being used again by
families. The plots are fully subscribed and well main-tained
and people can gather fresh herbs and vegetables on a daily basis.
Moreover, the garden
provides a productive therapeutic occupation for a group of retired, unemployed
or underemployed Cabramatta migrants and refugees. And it also provides a safe
place for people to forge reciprocal
relationships of acceptance and respect across the cross-cultural divide
-
a symbol of what many
of us believe is the 'kingdom of heaven on earth'.