Action
ORGANIZATIONS
Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions
An excellent NGO with offices around the world and numerous excellent publications. COHRE’s main focus is to expose and fight forced evictions and to advocate for ‘housing rights for all, everywhere’. It is in the forefront of the struggle to give squatters rights in international and national law and is currently trying to bring ‘crimes against humanity’ charges against Robert Mugabe for the mass evictions in Zimbabwe last year.
83 Rue de Montbrillant, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland; tel: +41 22 734 1028;
web: http://www.cohre.org
Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR)
A coalition of housing rights groups and people active across Asia. The ACHR newsletter Housing by People is a good place to start when looking at anything from slum self-help to anti-eviction fights across the region. Its website is excellent.
73 Soi Sonthiwattana 4, Ladprao 110, Ladprao Rd, Bangkok 10310, Thailand;
tel: +66 2 538 0919; fax: +66 2 539 9950;
web: http://www.achr.net
National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF)
One of the groups that spearheads the struggle for squatters’ rights in India, it has been built into one of the largest poor people’s organizations in the world.
PO Box 9389 Mumbai 400 026, India;
tel: +91 22 2386 5053; fax: +91 22 2388 7566;
web: http://www.sparcindia.org.
Mercy Centre is a social service and slum-dwellers advocacy centre in the heart of Bangkok’s biggest squatter community.
3757/15 Sukhumvit Rd Soi 40, Phra Khanong Bangkok, Thailand 10110;
tel: +66 2 671 5313; fax: +66 2 671 7028;
web: http://www.MercyCentre.org
Rooftops Canada is an international arm of the Canadian Co-operative Housing Federation that educates and runs programmes both to support housing rights and develop low-income housing in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.
720 Spadina Ave, Suite 313, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2T9, Canada; tel: +1 416 366 1445;
fax: + 1 416 366 3876; web: http://www.rooftops.ca
PUBLICATIONS
Environment and Urbanization is the quarterly journal of the International Institute for Environment and Development. It has some of the best analysis and statistics on slum conditions and the struggles of squatters and slum dwellers for secure tenure and community upgrade.
Contact: Human Settlements Programme, IIED, 3 Endsleigh Street, London, WC1H ODD, England;
tel: +44 20 7388 2117;
fax: +44 20 7388 2826 Web: http://www.iied.org
Shadow Cities: Robert Neuwirth’s highly readable account of two years living in squatter communities around the world. (Routledge, New York, 2005)
The Challenge of Slums: UN Habitat’s fact-packed overview of the state of the world’s slums (UN Habitat, Nairobi, 2003).
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Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
