[csaa-forum] [ Date for Slum Dwellers Seminar ]

[Transforming Cultures]

Sorry -  forgot to add the DATE: Friday 27th May, 2005! Full 2005 
seminar program is up  on our website:

http://www.transforming.cultures.uts.edu.au/postgrads/index.html


May's TFC postgraduate seminar will be presented by Leopold Podlushuc 
who will discuss his research on Slum Dwellers International.

Seminars are held at UTS, Room 210. Building 3 (Bon Marche). 4.00 - 
5.30pm

Please RSVP by return email for the full paper.

ABSTRACT

Thinking Globally acting Locally:

What is SDI?

Slum Dwellers International is an international network of the “poorest 
of the poor”, the “weakest of the weak”
who share ideas and experiences, and support one another in gaining 
access to the resources they lack: like
adequate land, infrastructure and housing, while also dealing with a 
plethora of issues which typify the milieu of
poverty, like HIV/ AIDS, pollution, violence and exploitation. SDI 
brings together poor women and men from
slum settlements; through national and international exchange visits, 
exhibitions and meetings to enable the
rapid transfer of knowledge, experiences and skills directly between 
organisations of the very poor.

SDI is not a supra-national NGO or development agency. It is rather a 
trans-national social movement made up
of voluntary association of like-minded people’s organisations, 
community based organisations committed to a
shared process of grassroots organisation (Federations), problem 
solving and solution sharing. An international
SDI Secretariat helps to coordinate these activities, but the primary 
focus of the network’s activities is
emphatically local.

The strength of SDI lies in the combination of its local and global 
dimensions. Strong local organisations of the
poor are built on a foundation of community savings schemes. These 
communities gather information about
their own settlements and use this information to explore collective, 
community led solutions to the needs,
which they identify as most salient for their communities. These local 
federations, supported by professional
NGO’, become part of a global network of similar organisations facing 
similar challenges, through an ongoing
exchange process. Communities learn to see their own situation in a new 
light, to share their own knowledge
and to learn from the experiences of others. The lessons learnt are 
then adapted to the local context. Success is
exemplary and can used as leverage to access resources, or make 
demands. SDI is a social movement based
around the creation of choice in a milieu vacant of choice. It does 
this through the exchange of people and their
knowledge. Grassroots wisdom linked worldwide to empower the “poorest 
of the poor,” a global collectivity
strengthening the “weakest of the weak.”

Response: James Goodman.

ALL WELCOME

[keri glastonbury]
transforming cultures centre
university of technology sydney
po box 123
broadway nsw 2007
ph +61 2 95142309
www.transforming.cultures.uts.edu.au


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