When you spend your days simply surviving, how do you find opportunities to escape poverty?

More than 4.6 crore Indians, meanwhile, are estimated to have fallen into extreme poverty in 2020, which is nearly half of the global new poor according to the United Nations.

In India waves of rural populations, in an estimated 25 to 30 people per minute, are migrating to urban centers in search of better economic opportunities. These migrant populations form semi permanent urban communities, where housing takes a form of haphazardly constructed tents, often in cramped conditions, without electricity, safe drinking water, or plumbing.

Many people work low wage jobs that are not monitored by the government (known as the informal economy). These jobs include construction or domestic labour and offer little ability to move up the socioeconomic ladder.

Families become trapped in intergenerational poverty cycles because:

• Unskilled men are forced to work manual labour jobs generating only a subsistence income without enough extra money to save.
• Children are forced to leave school early as families cannot afford to continue their education in favour of earning money.
• Women retain the full burden of household chores and use low quality solutions like kerosene for light, open fires for cooking, and manual grinders to make flour and basic foods. This deteriorates their health, prevents them from allocating time to income-earning, and are also expensive (kerosene costs $US1.00 every week).

People living in slum communities are just like anyone else – striving for opportunity and a regular income to look after their families. Join us in fighting poverty in India.