My Summer Experience with UHRC: Farah Shamolian

As a graduate student studying Public Health, I have always been fascinated about the dichotomy of health and well being and how it varies from one culture to the next. Upon completion of the first year of my MPH program at the UCLA School of Public Health, I had learned about so many different issues and problems and was ready to start applying the concepts learned in the classroom. Fortunately, I found the opportunity to intern with Urban Health Resource Centre (UHRC) for 10 weeks and it is this experience where I was able to gain the firsthand knowledge about some of the most important issues in the world.

Poor Environmental Conditions in the Slums I Visited

New Jagdish Nagar Temporary Bridge that has been washed off by the Monsoons

Upon my initial conversations with Dr. Siddharth Agarwal, the executive director of UHRC, I was introduced to many new terms and concepts that I was never exposed to.  For example, the words urban slums and empowerment were constantly mentioned.  I would think to myself, empowerment is an important concept, but can it really help to improve the health status of individuals in urban slums? Similarly, defining urban health in slum communities has always been difficult for me because there are so many different ways one can define it. 

The scholarly definition explains that urban areas, as defined by the Census of India, are “metros, cities, towns with municipalities, corporations, cantonment boards or notified town area committees. Also, towns with a minimum population of 5,000; at least 75 per cent of the male main workers engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; and with a density of population of at least 400 per sq km are also counted as urban areas.” The term slum (basti) is defined by Census of India as “any compact housing cluster or settlement of at least 20 households with a collection of poorly built tenements which are, mostly temporary in nature with inadequate sanitary, drinking water facilities and unhygienic conditions will be termed as slums. All clusters of 20-25 or more households having no roofs or non-concrete roofs, and not having any facility of drinking water, toilets or drainage would be considered as slums. Earlier, the cluster size for identification of slums was 60 households.” I was on a hunt to define these abstract concepts into my own for these definitions seemed too overarching for me to grasp.

Childrens groups excited to learn 

Children from the Basti New Jagdish Nagar Learning English

There I was in the heart of the urban slums in Indore with trash filled unpaved streets and shoeless children pumping water from a hand pump. The moment I saw these horrible conditions I started thinking about all of the different Public Health terms, statistics, classroom lectures and conversations that I have been exposed to. It was at that moment where I was able to internally define what really an urban slum is. 

Womens Group Training- Team Building Bracelet Making Activity 

Children were Taught about Hygiene and Hand Washing  

 As I continued learning about UHRC’s objectives and activities with women and children groups in slum communities, I realized that inspiring people with courage and hope gives them the opportunity to face their challenges and to potentially reduce/improve their burdens. Specifically, working with UHRC has given me the opportunity to learn about the various disparities beyond the statistics and maps. For example, I visited the slum New Jagdish Nagar which was not even a part of the official slum lists. Going to this particular slum was very challenging to see because the conditions were very poor. However, I learned that UHRC enabled the women in that slum/ basti to help improve their infrastructure by building a bridge over an important route that was inundated with water from the monsoon season. Members of their community discouraged many of the women who wanted to build this bridge, but with the help with UHRC they were able to build the bridge and overcome their barriers to success.

UHRC hosted an event to initiate complementary food feeding of 6 month old infants. It is traditionally known as "Anna Prashan"

Working directly with slum communities and UHRC has helped me realize how important education and empowerment is. The use of this method implicitly works to help individuals learn about and address issues on gender equality, health, nutrition, and access to entitlements/rights. Women’s groups in slums across Indore with guidance and support from UHRC and Sampoorn Mahila Samiti, a networked federation of 16 women’s groups formally linked with 28 other groups,  engage in monthly collective money savings activities. Women are able to form a pot of money to have in case of emergencies and to reduce the burden of debt due to the expenditures of family needs (healthcare, child education expenses, etc.). In case of dire circumstances women and their families are given the opportunity to obtain loans from this pot which helps them exponentially in times of need. This is only one snapshot of the many activities that UHRC engages in to improve the overall conditions of families living under poor conditions in urban slums.

I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with UHRC and learn about these grassroots level methods that will ultimately be part of the resolution to the complex issues faced in urban slums. I will leave this experience with a new found respect for life and those living under poor circumstances. 

Farah Shamolian 
MPH Candidate 2013 
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Public Health 
Community Health Sciences 
Intern at UHRC: June 2012 to September 2012