The Wheel of Fortune

Author: Paul Hoffman, member of IBM’s Corporate Service Corps, 2012

The Wheel of Fortune. It’s an ancient philosophical concept that placed the Roman goddess, Fortuna, center stage. The personification of luck, she would spin a wheel at random, immediately altering the lives of those persons on the wheel. This capricious behavior was thought to represent the fortunes and misfortunes that confront most of us over the courses of our lives.

(From an edition of Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium )

In 2012, I was selected as part of the IBM Corporate Service Corps and was sent to Indore, India. My team would work with the Urban Health Resource Centre to assist in evaluating marketing and communication resources, and then to develop a strategy guide around this topic.

The Wheel of Fortune had spun, landing me, for the first time in my life, in India. Good fortune for me, as I was about to be part of one of the most significant human-service efforts I’d experienced. However, it became immediately apparent, that for many, the Wheel had not yet landed them in a positive place.

Western media (certainly in the US where I live) tends to speak of two major “world-changers”—China and India. The economic progress in both countries is reported as, not only changing domestic wealth and quality of life, but having far-reaching impact on the economies around the globe. However, what is so often overlooked in these reports is the huge human population that has been left behind. It’s not a new situation; as economies grow, all too often, people from the countryside flock to cities searching for a better life. But lack of education, money for housing and other social structures contribute to a mass of humanity becoming stuck in urban slums.

But hope and fortune grows in the cracks of society and in the shadows. This fact was made obvious to me through our team’s first meeting with the UHRC team, led by Dr. Siddharth Argarwal. UHRC’s mission is to bring about sustainable improvements in the health and overall wellbeing of the urban poor by influencing policies and programs and empowering the community. The improvements intended by UHRC quickly became apparent to our team.

The UHRC team educated us on the conditions in Indore overall, and specifically in the slums (bastis). Our team was shocked to hear statistics such as:

• Over 40% of Indore’s total population lives in slum conditions
• Only 35% of children in Indore’s slum receive proper immunization
• Just 11% of slum residents have optimal water facilities; many have to walk over 200 meters to get water.
• Most slums have non-existent sewage facilities

UHRC’s focus is on improving life in the slums and addressing gender inequity. This is done through empowering women’s groups and their federations, developing community-based health and development funds, and empowering women to take charge of their health, nutrition and well-being. Through strengthened community groups, coordination with providers, programs facilitate access of services to the vulnerable, socially “lost” sections of society.

Our team was taken into slums and met with women’s groups. These women were as strong and resolute as I’ve ever seen. (In fact, I asked myself throughout my time in Indore if I, given the same circumstances as these families, could not only endure these conditions, but even hope to positively work to organize, save, protest… all the while keeping the family unit intact.) It’s amazing to see the power of the human spirit in such places.

                    

(Above: Before October 2011, people had to walk through this drain to go to school, work, or the local market. Determined women’s group members, along with submitting a request to civic authorities for a bridge, galvanized the community and made this temporary bridge.)

The empowered women's groups—through gentle negotiation and through loans from community-based health and development funds—are steadily turning the Wheel of Fortune towards improving water supply, children's immunization and education, toilets in slum homes, sewage systems.

Change is happening. Yes, perhaps too slowly, but the inherent power dynamics in Indian society are shifting.

I’m grateful for the opportunity that was provided me to assist UHRC in doing its most critical work. I will carry the connection to the many families I met with me, and continue my hope that we will all feel the connectedness of the human experience and inherent rights we have for dignity and a chance to improve our situation.

I urge anyone reading this blog to contribute to support the efforts of the UHRC. The issues of “another country” are no longer that.