Mar 14, 2010
looking for a place to stay
information about the practical part of my thesis are currently a little underrepresented. thus its time to write a bit about possible places where the reallife mapping of the urban environment with mobile phones could take place. I currently wrote emails to a number of urban movements and groups in various cities where people are organized mainly around housing issues. The cities are São Paulo in Brazil, Nairobi in Kenia and Durban/Cape Town in South Africa, where the following movements and groups are based:
São Paulo
Movimento de Luta nos Bairros, Vilas e Favelas
União dos Movimentos de Moradia São Paulo
UMMSP is part of the country wide União Nacional por Moradia Popular. It is composed of grassroots movemens, communities and groups which fight for the right to the city and the right for residence. It also opposes the current urban reformation which leads to social exclusion. In addition UMMSP constructs social houses and have impact on the cities housing legislation. More information can be found at their history page.
APOIO is a social non-profit organisation whose aim is the social integration of men, women, children and adults that live in precarious conditions such as homeless people, slum dwellers or low-income households. More information can be found at their history page.
Nairobi
Koch FM is the first community radio station established in the Korogocho slum of Nairobi. It is run by the people for the people and due to its acceptance among the local inhabitants it may provide a nice starting point to get in contact with the inhabitants of Korogocho and probably to spread information of the intended project as well. I personal like Koch FM because I like pirate and free radio station that exists all over the world.
Durban
Abahlali
baseMjondolo is a slum dwellers movement in South Africa, initially established in the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban in order to fight the pending sale of the land the settlement was established on. Nowadays, Abahlali is present in many informal settlements of various cities all over the country and also forms, together with other movements, the Western Cape Anti Eviction Campaign and the Poor Peoples Alliance. For a detailed information take a look at their introductionary page.
