Chennai, INDIA
SPAN
Flow Foundation believes in the importance of local people being actively involved in addressing the needs that face their communities and that children should be given this opportunity. We proudly support the establishment of ‘street parliaments’ in Chennai slums because we have watched their effectiveness in achieving this goal - in particular the way they involve children and women in decision making and action.
Street Parliaments empower families living in informal neighbourhoods (slums) to take ownership of solving the problems they face. Groups of 30 families volunteer one person each, to collectively tackle challenges including health care, education, sanitation, crime and employment. In a true expression of “including everyone” SPAN has had a 13 year old Minister of Sanitation and a 60 year old Minister of Education, working together.
Together, Street Parliaments have established children's tuition sessions, trained women in tailoring, and held self-defence classes for young women.
Between 2013-17, SPAN’s founder, Arul Sahayam established 13 street parliaments in the Ekamparampillai slum in Chennai. Once the network was established, specialised roles from each group came together: a summit meeting of all of the Ministers for Children enabled a community playground to be established.
The parliaments don’t only focus on development needs: during the devastating floods of November 2015, Chennai local authorities used the SPANs as frontline contacts for assessing the needs of affected people and for delivering aid, attesting to the effectiveness of the network.
