Chennai shanty Dwellers and the Supportive NGOs

Chennai is the 4th largest city of India. It was identified as Madras during the British era and is legendary by the exceptional and distinctive Madras curry still named like that today. The city prides itself of sprawling beaches, a magnificent Marina, awesome Temples and advanced Universities, Cultural centers and more. The flip side is that 25 percent of Chennai’s population dwells in the slums.

According to the Census of India, the explanation of a slum is "a compact area of at least 300 in population or about 60-70 households of poorly built, congested dwellings in an unhygienic situation usually with lacking infrastructure and missing proper sanitation and drinking water conveniences." More than 30% of the shanties in these slums have no drainage systems. These people are exposed to waterborne illnesses like Malaria due to the lack of civic amenities. The residents of slums are continuously gripped in the fear of knocking down of their homes due to urban development activities.

The slums are typically huts built with materials like plastic or tin sheets in a haphazard manner without appropriate access, congested and overcrowded. The lack of educational, health and recreational facilities in the slums make their lives inferior, plunging them into evils like unemployment, crime, and drug and alcohol abuse. The women and children are the worst affected and they are mostly deprived of the fundamental necessities of life.

There have been never-ending efforts and developmental work by the government and voluntary service by Non-profit organizations and NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) to meet the developing needs of the ever rising slum population. These efforts directed by various welfare schemes are aimed at establishing awareness about hygiene, and to educate them about their civil liberties and on how to excel their lives.

Here are a few NGOs that are occupied in helping the slum populations to ease poverty, illiteracy and unemployment.
ANEW (anewindia.org) This is an organization for Non-Traditional Employment for Women. ANEW is a non-profit charitable organization situated at Chennai. It was established with a mission to enhance the socio-economic status of young, underprivileged women by empowering them with self confidence and optimum skills to enable them to become self-reliant and contribute to family and society. ANEW is dedicated to helping young women find access to sensible job skills and good paying full time jobs. Generally, employment choices for women from underprivileged families in India are limited to "traditional" jobs in agriculture and low-skilled handicraft employment. In many cases these women are exploited or underemployed. Over the last few years ANEW has supplied women of the underprivileged section of society with the training necessary to become home nurses, computer operators, car drivers and Auto rickshaw drivers.
Karunakarya (Karunakarya.org) has been doing laudable work serving slum dwellers of Chennai (formerly Madras) to integrate into society. Karunakarya motivates and helps children to secure admission to state run schools, offers various after school courses and seeks to equip young people in getting professional training. Karunakarya supports the poorest of the poor in slums and villages with medical aid and relief. They also offer awareness programs for slum-dwellers where they be trained about their rights and develop problem solving skills. Their plans are aimed to enrich and empower the poorest in society so they can take dependability for discovering solutions to the problems in their own communities.

We salute these NGO’s for their magnanimous and valuable contribution to the future of generations to come. It is said that once the cycle of poverty is broken it never again returns

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anewindia.org and Karunakarya.org This article is sponsored by Peachtree Ink, the best place online for inkjet ink cartridges

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