The Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC) is one of the largest Indian NGOs working on housing and infrastructure issues for the urban poor. In 1984, when SPARC was formed, it began working with the most vulnerable and invisible of Mumbai's urban poor - the pavement dwellers. SPARC's philosophy is that if we can develop solutions that work for the poorest and most marginalised in the city, then these solutions can be scaled up to work for other groups of the urban poor across the country and internationally. Since 1986, SPARC has been working in partnership with two community-based organisations the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila Milan. Together, they are known as the Alliance. Today, the Alliance works in about 70 cities in the country and has networks in about 20 countries internationally.

The National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) was founded in the mid 1970s and is a national organisation of community groups and leaders who live in slums/informal settlements across India. Its main aim is to mobilise the urban poor to come together, articulate their concerns and find solutions to the problems they face. Today the NSDF works with about half a million households in the country. In 2000, the President and Founder of NSDF, A.Jockin, was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Mahila Milan means "Women Together" in Hindi and is a decentralised network of poor women's collectives that manage credit and savings activities in their communities. Mahila Milan aims to provide a space for women to take on important decision making roles and be recognised for their critical contributions towards improving the lives of their communities. Mahila Milan was initiated in 1986 when 500 women who lived on Mumbai's pavements organised themselves to successfully prevent the demolitions of their homes. Today, Mahila Milan has given out tens of thousands of loans to poor women all across the country and has collected savings worth several crores of rupees.

The roles of each member of the Alliance are clearly defined. The NSDF organises and mobilises the urban poor and negotiates with resource providing institutions, Mahila Milan supports and trains women's collectives to administer and manage their community's resources and participate in NSDF activities, and SPARC provides the administrative, financial, policy, documentation and other support necessary for these processes to be successful on the ground.

Our Goals

The urban poor in most cities across the world have inadequate access to housing and infrastructure. Therefore the immediate aim of the Alliance is to create the institutional arrangements that are necessary for large numbers of the poor to access and housing and infrastructure. Our long-term vision is to support a process where organised groups of the urban poor can participate in making decisions about how their cities are developed and managed.

Please click here to see relevant publications on our history, philosophy and work.