Vatva

Need

Development is something that all habitants of an area aspire to, but one of the most critical areas that bears poor environment quality, high degree of informal settlements and activities, low income, social division and marginalization, poor quality and reach of infrastructure, poor connectivity to other areas is Vatva and its nearby areas. This area has recently become a part of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation city limits and therefore, the city and its systems have not reached these areas so far.

Our Intervention

Saath aims to bring about a city level network of institutions and individuals for the development of Vatva and the surrounding area.

The program will progress in three phases through an alternative approach in a bottom- top implementation with the timeline of 10 years.

• The phase 1 focusses on initiation, action, and empowerment with the key deliverables like setting up of an Urban Resource Centre, preparing participatory plans to improve the physical and social infrastructure of the area.
• The phase 2 shall focus on understanding of the stakeholders, upscaling of the program in different areas, and deep diving into the complex problems that are time consuming like working on land rights, climate change problems etc.
• The phase 3 shall focus on policy change and replication of the program to other areas.

Impact

Way Forward

1. Community led and managed URCs covering 20,000 households established.
2. Services provided through URCs to across various sectors to 20,000 households/individuals as per the sectoral goals chart.
3. 40 active Community leaders trained and supported for working for their communities.
4. Community led behaviour change seen across different sectors where the need is identified.
   1. Gender Sensitization for Boys
   2. Solid Waste Management
   3. Local Governance
   4. Sanitation
   5. Health
   6. Education and its importance across age and gender
5. The recognition of potential of community led URC as an institutional building block for organizing low-income communities and settlements.
6. Bottom-up area development plans prepared and implemented, with local governance and communities as equal stakeholders.
7. A demonstrable model for participatory urban planning and development in the context of the 74th amendment established and advocated for
8. Recognition generated for the importance of participatory urban governance.
9. Stakeholder network for local area development built and coordinated.
10. Institutional support for program replication in phase 2 established.