Biografia Sheela Patel

Sheela Patel comes from a family of intellectuals in Mumbai. She began her career working with several NGOs working with women and children. It was during her trips to Byculla in Mumbai that she came across the organizational capabilities of the Mahila Mandal, NSDF and Jockin Arputham. Jockin originally hails from the state of Karnataka in South India. Due to an alcoholic father who was not able to look after the family, it fell upon Jockin to earn a meagre living. Jockin ran away as an adolescent from his home. He came to Mumbai and had to live on the pavements and slums. With the state government constantly destroying the temporary shelters every month or Jockin joined the women in agitating against the government’s non-performing policies towards the slum dwellers. Despite constantly having to run from the authorities or hiding amongst the voluminous folds of slum women’s petticoats and saris, Jockin felt that as agitators they were not able to achieve a practical outcome or solution. Eventually in 1984 the National Slum Dweller’s Federation – a people’s organization working in alliance with the Mahila Mandal (Women’s collectives) a decentralized network of women pavement and slum dwellers and SPARC came together to build the capacity of the urban poor. Together they would negotiate entitlement with the authorities and mainstream institutions to secure land tenure, housing and infrastructure for the urban poor.