Insights from a Visit to Learning by Locals

I along with my fellow students of the course “Social Entrepreneurship & Impact” had the opportunity to visit Learning by Locals and Sanjay Colony, the urban poor area in Delhi that they are based in. We were being shepherded by our faculty for the course, Professor Advaita Rajendr & Avnie Garg, our TF. Seeing and learning about the slum colony and the ideas, intentions, processes and programs of a social organisation of such scale was enlightening.

As the guided tour began, I was struck by the living conditions in Sanjay Colony. I learnt about how the community receives basic resources like water & electricity. The colony accesses drinking water through water tankers from which they fill their containers and carry back to their house. There is domestic and commercial electricity available for homes and businesses. Reliance provides free water and 200 units of free electricity for domestic use. Our guide Badal informed us how during periods of election, candidates offer more free electricity or other incentives to attract voters. There have been occasions where slum areas are destroyed during campaign periods too.

The most insightful part of the field visit was learning the entire cycle of the textile markets. We first saw numerous women on the road sorting mounds of cloth shreds. They do so based on colour and pack them into bags. We learnt that small shreds earn less money compared to bigger shreds though the effort required to sort through them is more. The women are contracted daily by those who have storage and have bought sacks of such shreds from tailors and factories. After the shreds are separated, they are bought back by the factories who recycle them back into thread to create new pieces. This process helps ensure each bit of cloth is used completely thereby reducing waste.

We then stopped by an elderly couple’s shop. Speaking with them helped me understand more about the work done by informal workers. They buy defective items and items labelled as waste from companies and repair them. They usually work by themselves but occasionally hire others too. They then sell back the items per piece or sort them based on colour and size and sell them back to companies. Company trucks are a daily feature as they buy huge quantities of items from such shops. It was interesting to find that it’s rare to find two pieces of the same item. (Note: the metaphor of originality and distinctiveness stood out during the visit and has stayed with me since!)

Visiting our guide Badal’s parents’ shop was a great experience. He wonderfully explained how his family business works. They buy sacks of cloth from companies (the bigger side pieces cut off while making clothes and deemed waste) or the khatar (thread) market and then join them using different machines to make palazzos. We learnt that they can never check through the sack before buying it and must take a gamble on the quality of shreds they are buying. They also don’t sell many of the same colour in a row as it is unlikely it will sell. This shows how people labelled as uneducated perfectly understand consumers and their consumption habits. Furthermore, the scraps that are generated in the shop are sold back to the thread (khatar) market for sorting and the cycle continues (as explained earlier). We also saw a shop that was cutting back cloth material into straight pieces and selling the scraps in the khatar market. Badal also explained the pricing pyramid. The famous Sanjay colony market is a wholesale market with dresses selling for about Rs 70 a piece where the cost involved is about Rs 30. Shockingly, once the same piece enters a fancier shop or a mall it can become more than 5 times the amount.

We then went and saw the Learning by Locals classrooms and learnt about their workings. We got to see the complexity of their operations and the work they do. The computer lab, library and children’s classroom were all very well managed with advanced computer classes offered on the weekend too. We learnt about their programs and met with some children who were solving math problems. We then chatted with the students. They asked us questions about Ashoka while we learnt about their program which includes English, computer and music classes along with leadership lessons for a period of 6 months.

We then spoke with Pradeep Kumar, the founder of Learning by Locals, who highlighted the struggles they face with parents and children, how they divide work within the organisation, the benefit of having a network with other NGOs, success stories, and more. He also explained the financial model of the NGO. Half of the profits from Delhi by Locals (a tourism company wherein tourists are shown Delhi and the slum area) and all profits from Learning by Locals are utilised to run the NGO along with donations whenever required. We also learnt from the people who work there how their lives have changed after affiliating with the enterprise.

Reflecting on the field visit, I felt a renewed but stronger appreciation and acknowledgement for what I had – food, clothes, home, education and so much more. As it was my first visit to a slum, I was surprised at the complexity and innovation present in places I would least expect, for example, coming up with creative ways to repurpose scrap cloth. The visit also solidified the difference between formal and informal workers. The female workers we saw in the beginning of field visit would be considered informal workers as they are hired daily and have no standing contract. Badal’s parents’ shop would be considered an informal enterprise as it is a small family run business and an unregistered business. In the same area we see formal workers and enterprises in Learning by Locals, an NGO. The organisation and its employees are considered formal as they are registered with the government and the employees have contracts with the company.

The entire visit was unforgettable. Not only did we learn about the enterprise, their workings and their programs, but we also toured the slum and learnt about the work of various types of people and businesses. We learnt how the business structure of the NGO works, and the living conditions of the community. Interacting with people of a different background, lifestyles and workings proved to be a highly educational experience – one that I will never forget and continue to reflect on for a long time.

[Author: Aditi Agarwal (aditi.agarwal_ug25@ashoka.edu.in)]