Integrated Energy Centers

I visited four of our Integrated Energy Centers today, located in four different slums of Bangalore. When we set off for the day, guided by our field coordinator Yuva Kumar, I was wondering why we were visiting four different slums. And by the end of the day I understood, more clearly than ever before, what SELCO means when it says extensive customization and innovation is needed to be able to have a clear impact at that level of the demographic, the different layers of poverty and awareness is so vast that the one brush for all just doesn’t work. And that seems to be the bane of a lot of our development programs. They are formulated sitting in offices, based on metrics and they just cannot bridge the gap between knowing at the theoretical level and what the ground reality is.

Firstly, what is an Integrated Energy Center,(IEC)?  It’s a center created in a slum, which has the solar energy system installed to power all the shacks in the community with a single bulb each, and the center itself is enabled to provide additional facilities like solar freezers, projectors, mobile charging stations, schools and such other add ons depending on need and ability of each slum. They are run on either owned or operated models again depending on capacity of the slum.

I’m writing about two of these here, Kariyammana Agrahara and Timmasandra

Kariyammana Agrahara

This is a slum located in the center of an IT belt near Marathahalli, and you can imagine how the stark contrast of the tall glass buildings with the hip IT crowd to the people who inhabit the slum hits you. We’re all aware the gap exist, but we’ve not really seen seen it.

It’s 300 shacks tightly packed together, for lack of space I guess. They're all these single units made of poles and plastic sheets with almost no real protection against any risks. There's easy entry for creepy crawlies, rain water, drunken men, anything. Plus, there's none of the basic infrastructure we take so much for granted. No electricity, no water, no toilets, no space. The slums I've visited earlier in Hyderabad, to meet students of Smile Foundation, now look like middle class living in comparison. 

The IEC is housed in a small shop run by Kumar, who is now our operator there. The solar installation can at a time charge a hundred batteries which can light one bulb each, and that’s the lighting the slum has for four hours each evening, and that’s been there for four years now. It's on a monthly rental basis of Rs.200 for the single bulb facility.

The entry to the slum, and after that it goes on like a maze

Into the slum

The Battery Charging unit at the IEC

The single bulb in Ganga's house

A SELCO innovation; a chimney on this stove

An outlet from the stove attached to an asbestos
 pipe on the outside

At the IEC

A School being run in the IEC; it's a tie up between SELCO
and an NGO that runs schools in slums

Two dogs totally focused on a monkey on the tree;
real cute it was

The really positive thing there, is how enterprising Kumar is. Last year he approached SELCO saying he’d like to be able to sell cool drinks and ice creams for the slum dwellers during summer, and SELCO has now installed a Solar Freezer in his shop. He also runs a projector on which he shows a movie every two or three days and charges Rs.10 for adults and Rs.5 for children. Additionally, he also has a mobile charging station at Rs.5 per hour of charging which is what has enabled all those households to own and use a cell phone, which as you can imagine is in itself a huge impact on their lives and livelihoods. Here I saw faith and enterprise against the greatest odds, and the empowerment enabled by the focus and support that SELCO has offered. Instilled faith all over again...…..

Thannisandra

This is a community of around 30 shacks, all in one straight line on the edge of an inner road that’s not in use, very open and airy. It’s a community of Dholak sellers from Uttar Pradesh, from a village in Fatehpur, 60 kms from Lucknow. What hits you at first go is how everyone seems to just be there, men, women and children, no one at work, no one at school. And the number of children made me think of Pied Piper, each family has like five or six; it’s thirty families but there must have been atleast a hundred children between the age group of one and twelve.

On the surface, full of life and joy. But the story is one of utter despair. This group of people came searching for better livelihood options to Bangalore about 5 years ago, but they keep getting shunted out of every place they stayed, as they just can't afford any kind of rent. They can't afford the two hundred rupees per month for light, so they pay only a hundred. In the five years they’ve been in Bangalore, they’ve shifted base almost seven times, and that impacts their entire approach to life. They don’t want to invest in anything, as the need for a place they can settle for a length of time seems to undermine everything else. 

To cater to this need, the IEC has been built as a mobile model, placed in a cart, so if they move, the center moves with them. Innovation for sure.

In addition to the lights, Selco Foundations Urban Labs is working on livelihood programs for the Dholak guys, and has organized for sale of the Dholaks, as Dholaks and also as lamp shades, plus laptop and mobile covers in the Sunday Soul Santhe at Bangalore. We also have an outlet of their products in office.

The entire solar installation in a cart;
Solar panels on it and charging station within

Wahida, who offered us tea in her shack
Gave us real heavy philosophy and what's more,
in poetic form too !!

Contrast in a pic

               

Firdouz showing us the Dholaks

They love their pictures.....and aren't they pretty !!

Mauseen wanted this one, so it's up here for her

Another group of four..happy to pose

They were a very interesting community, and I think we spent more than two hours just chatting up with them. Aadam, their clear leader says, humara zindagi sirf dholak hai, aur kuch nahi karna chahthe. Kwaish nahi hai, tho khwabh kahaan ka, khwabh nahi tho umang kahan se. ( Our lives are only about the dholaks, we want to do nothing else. There is no desire, so why dream, and when there is no dream, where is there hope). His language, his style, to me it looked straight out of Umrao Jaan. And the women are so aware and pretty. But, they were like, hum kho kuch nahi aatha hai, ek aadmi kamatha hai aur dus log kathe hain, aise hi jiyenge aur aise hi marengi. ( we don't know how to do anything, one person earns and ten of us eat, we will live like this, and die like this). Very controlled and very conservative. And with such a closed attitude as they have, it looked like they have a long way to go. Each to their own I guess.

Field co-ordinator Yuva Kumar in the background
Eunice and Nakul in some kind of Japanese bow;
but truly, take a bow guys !!