Resilience News

After researching, I got to know more about ‘The Dog Aunty- Pratima Devi.’ She nurses the injured dogs feeds them from a civic van in the evenings- the fare included milk, casserole and mutton. Pratima has gained quite a good reputation in her area and also, neighbours contribute in feeding her dogs. She belongs from the place called Nandigram in West Bengal. She came to Delhi in 1980s. She has suffered a lot in her past life but now she has gained such a reputation that more or less people from every part of Delhi, knows her and respect her love and dedication towards animal welfare. Popularly known as ‘Amma,’ she said that she has worked as a domestic helper in Rahul Dev’s home, a model-turned-actor. She told that he was very fond of her paranthas, adding that he stilMes to meet her.

I took some time out to interact with the local area's youth in Durgapuri. This time, I saw new issues from the other side. The common theme I heard was that these young people study to get a job, make money and to land a great post; however, the problem was the lack of a good institute to help them brush up my communication skills and gain command of English. My point of view that soft skills are a key to success. But unfortunately we don’t know and what we have to do in our career, as there is no one to guide us. The questions and the usual response I heard were as follows: Q: What is your purpose of your life? A: The purpose of my life is to be happy, successful and help others. But first of all I have to be successful then I will help others. Q: Would you like to tell me about your mental strength? A: I don’t know about my mental strength but yes I struggled the problem of depression just because of my career and it still continue. But I have strong urge to do something for

As I was conducting research for identifying areas of improvement and progress in Saket, I got to know about an interesting woman named Pratima Devi. A rag picker by profession, people identify this 61 year old woman as ‘The Dog Aunty'. She got this name as looks after more than 400 stray dogs, of which about 200 reside near her home. I found it very interesting, so I decided to find more about her work. She’s a single mother of two children, who treat dogs as her own children. She daily feeds them with Roti or whatever she finds to feed them.  Feeding animals is a great thing itself because, as we know, our government officials do a very little or nothing for animal welfare. The best thing I got to know was that the dogs fed by Pratima Devi, never bite anyone. They have been sterilised and vaccinated by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation. I am now desperate to meet her and know more about her work and dedication towards animal welfare. She is an inspiration for every generatio

This week I did a survey in my selected area of Durgapuri, and I got to know more about the problems of the people living there. The questions that I used in my survey were as follows: Would you like to change your locality? Yes then why? What is the major problems in your area? You think so that our area is having breathing problem? The answers I got broadly were interesting to note. Most people said they wanted to see changes in the area. They identified the lack of space for kids, no proper footpath etc. as basic needs; unfortunately they have not been fulfilled yet. In my point of view there is a visibly clear problem of spacing. All of us know that Delhi is a metropolitan city, and there is huge of population, especially in areas like Durgapuri in Delhi, thus leading to a spacing problem. The people also identified a pollution problem by saying that the air in the city in general and the area as well was not good quality, making breathability a concern. They identified the f

Currently I am doing studying the area of Durgapuri close to Shahdara, which is in East Delhi. So far, I have observed that this area seems to have three major problems - walkability,lack of public spaces and the issue of the area not being very child friendly. There is a bus stop here which has been in poor shape for since many years. Also, the foot path of Durgapuri Chowk is not convenient for the pedestrians in the area to walk on, and because of this, the people who live here face many difficulties when commuting on foot for short distances. I hope that the local administration would take some immediate actions to improve the lives of people living there. I will now proceed to verify my initial findings using the methodology of personal surveys, in which there are no boundations on answering. The approach shall be more in the nature of conversations, where people are free to give their opinions and suggestions and it is also helpful for me to complete this atlas with authen

I tried to find some living parameters in Saket in South Delhi to identify problems in the area. so that some intervention can be made for improvement. The methodology used was personal surveys, in which there are no boundaries defined for answering questions. People are free to give their opinions and suggestions as it is a conversational approach. And it is also helpful for me to complete this atlas with authentic information. Some of the parameters that I tried to talk about were Walkability, Breathability, Community Support, Public Spaces, Child Friendliness, Essential Services and Social Harmony. Till date, I have talked to about 50 people in which I have been able to find some common issues faced by people in this areas. Majority of the people feel that breathability in Saket is the major issue. Saket being a posh area, facing such an issue was little disappointing for me. I also identified some places which are community corners in which Sai Baba Temple emerged as a highli