40 people from 10 countries i.e. Sri Lanka, Nepal, Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Myanmar, Japan, Thailand, Bangladesh attended an exchange program in Mumbai from 24th September to 29th September which was organized by the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR). The focus was to understand the strategy of NSDF and Mahila Milan to design and execute solutions for the communities by the community while working with government as well. Each team comprised of 2-4 people with at least one person who could translate from English to the national language.
ACHR has been running the ACCA program for several years and every year there are meetings to visit a new learning site, review ongoing projects and also look at new proposals for the next round of projects financed by ACCA. For this event, two and a half days were planned with the alliance and one day for project reporting and review of new proposals.
Slum/Shack Dwellers International and ACHR jointly funded this event.
Afternoon of 25th: at Byculla center Orientation about the alliance and its work with pavement dwellers
Day of the 26th: field visits to housing projects, relocation projects, and sanitation projects were organized. NSDF and Mahila Milan took them to various sites in Mumbai; the initial plan to have them visit Pune was cancelled due to the shortage of time. Instead Pune Mahila Milan was invited to Mumbai to present their work.
Day of the 27: The whole day was spent at Byculla where the whole group spent the morning with questions about what they had seen and later presenting what they were doing. Pune Mahila Milan presented their work at the end of the session.
Day of 28th: A whole day review was taken up at the hotel hall about ACCA projects.