2011 World Water Week Opening Plenary Monday 11

Sheela Patel (born 1952) is an activist and academic involved with people living in

slums A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily in ...

and shanty towns.

Early life

In 1974, Patel received her Masters in Social Work from the

Tata Institute of Social Sciences Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) is a multi-campus public research university in Mumbai, India. It is Asia's oldest institute for professional social work education and was founded in 1936 in then Bombay Presidency of British India a ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

. She was then involved with a community centre called the Nagpada Neighbourhood House.

SPARC

With

Prema Gopalan Prema Gopalan (1955/1956 – 29 March, 2022) was an Indian social activist. She co-founded the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC) in 1984. She then founded and has been executive director of Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SS ...

, Patel is the founding director of the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), which she set up in

in 1984 as an advocacy group for the

pavement dwellers Pavement dwellers refers to informal housing built on the footpaths/pavements of city streets. The structures use the walls or fences which separate properties from the pavement and street outside. Materials include cloth, corrugated iron, cardboa ...

of Mumbai. SPARC continues to this day to play a major role in the politics of slum development in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and throughout the

Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...

. In 2000, SPARC was the recipient of the United Nations Human Settlement Award.

Groups

Patel works closely with the

National Slum Dwellers Federation The National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) in India was established by Jockin Arputham when he fought on behalf of a community of 70,000 to appeal a 1976 eviction order. It is a national organization which brings together multiple communities an ...

(NSDF) and

Mahila Milan Mahila Milan (Hindi: 'women together') is a self-organised, decentralised collective of female pavement dwellers in Bombay. The group works with issues such as housing, sanitation, and grassroots lending schemes. It aims at gaining women equal re ...

, two community-based groups working on with the poor in Indian cities. She worked in the National Technical Advisory Group (NTAG) for the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). She has founded the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, the Asian Women and Shelter Network and Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP), an organisation that works with women's collectives in more than 600 villages in Maharashtra. Patel is also a founder and current chairperson of

Slum Dwellers International Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI), is a global social movement of the urban poor that started in 1996. It forms a network of community-based organisations in more than 30 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. The S ...

, a network of community-based organisations in 33 countries spanning Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Awards

2011:

Padma Shri Padma Shri ( IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conf ...

award, the fourth highest civilian honor in India. 2009: David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award 2000:

UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour Award The UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour Award was created by the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) in 1989 to encourage and recognize the countries, governments, organizations, and individuals who have made great contributions to the deve ...

Selected works

*Patel, Sheela; Arputham, Jockin; Bartlett, Sheridan. 2015. '"We beat the path by walking": How the women of Mahila Milan in India learned to plan, design, finance and build housing.' ''Environment & Urbanization'', 28(1
Free access
*Patel, Sheela. 2013. 'Upgrade, Rehouse or Resettle? An Assessment of the Indian Government's Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) Programme'. ''Environment & Urbanization'', 25(1): 177-188. *Patel, Sheela. 2012. 'Supporting data collection by the poor
Alliance Magazine
*Patel, Sheela; Baptist, Carrie Baptist; D'Cruz, Celine. 2012. 'Knowledge is power – Informal Communities Assert Their Right to the City through SDI and Community-led Enumerations'. ''Environment & Urbanization'', 24(1). *Patel, Sheela. 2011. 'Are Women Victims, or Are They Warriors?' in ''Women's Health and the World's Cities'', chapter 6, (eds) Afaf Ibrahim, Meleis, Eugénie L. Birch, Susan M. Wachter, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. * Patel, Sheela. 2011. 'Recasting the Vision of Megacities in the South. Emerging Challenges for the North-South Dialogue in Development', in (ed)Robertson-von Trotha, Caroline Y. (ed.): ''Europe: Insights from the Outside Kulturwissenschaft interdisziplinär/Interdisciplinary Studies on Culture and Society'', Vol 5 Baden-Baden *Patel, Sheela & Mitlin, Diana. 2010. 'Gender Issues and Slum/Shack Dweller Federations' (report). International Institute for Environment and Development. *Patel, Sheela; Sheuya, Shaaban; Howden-Chapman, Philippa . 2007. 'The Design of Housing and Shelter Programs: The Social and Environmental Determinants of Inequalities' in ''Journal of Urban Health'', 84(1) 98-108. *Patel, Sheela; Burra, Sundar; D'Cruz, Celine. 2001 'Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI) – Foundations to treetops' in ''Environment and Urbanization'' 13(2) 45-59.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Patel, Sheela Indian urban planners 1952 births Living people Recipients of the Padma Shri in social work 20th-century Indian architects Indian women architects 20th-century Indian women artists 20th-century Indian educators Indian women activists Indian human rights activists Artists from Mumbai Women artists from Maharashtra