In order to make the youths more socially smart in the Bhubaneswar Town Centre District (BTCD) area, a community mapping process at Shantipalli Basti in Ward-34 has been started involving the slum residents. The BTCD is the smart district of the city, where the area-based development will be implemented.
The community mapping (Community Resilience Analysis and Action) will involve profile mapping of the slum residents and the mapping as well as assessment of their basic requirements and needs so that in future while implementing the smart initiative for the slums, the short-term and long-term redressal methods would be properly planned, implemented and followed, sources said.
Notably, the Bhubaneswar Smart City limited (BSCl) and the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) are implementing the project to make the youth and women of the BTCD area socially smart and make the society safer for girls, women and the youths. Humara Bachpan is the implementing partner in this ambitious project, which would later be scaled up to the city level, outside the smart district area.
Issues like illegal sale of liquor, youth unemployment, issues of domestic workers, high dropout rate, girls feeling uncomfortable to move within slum, linking women SHGs to market, less number of potable water connections points leading to more waiting time to collect water, defunct community toilets, vulnerable condition of drains and insufficient no of dustbins were discussed.
However, the experts present at the community mapping initiative also put forth the need of the community role in better implementation of the ideas as things like safety for girls and women always remain a community domain inside a slum. While the community ownership will come as a major deciding tool in the implementation, the BSCl and UNFPA experts would work as facilitators for the socially smart project.
While the community mapping activities continued inside Shanti Palli Basti in Ward No. 34, a separate three- day long sensitisation workshop is being held for 26 adolescent boys and youths as peer leaders from eight slums, at CYSD, under Socially Smart Bhubaneswar initiative in order to make the boys and youths more sensible towards the various issues of the slums. In fact, earlier a group of girls was given training under the same format and the girls were designated as Rs Rs Pragati Sathi’’.
The boys will also be known as Rs Rs Pragati Sathi’’ as they will also be the agents of change inside their respective slums.