It aims at gaining women equal recognition for improvement of their communities, while indulging in important decision making activities.
A survey carried out by SPARC between July and October 1985 found that pavement dwellers were not transient populations, but people who had lived for over two decades in the city.
This was documented and published in We The Invisible, which detailed the background of these people from the poorest districts of India – victims of underdevelopment, communal violence, floods, famines and other crises.
at the United Nations governing council meetings, the team built a full-size house model and a community toilet block in the UN building.
[6] Assisted by the Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), Mahila Milan runs a number of programs.
[8] Since most of the women were illiterate, Mahila Milan teaches a system where everyone has a pouch in which different coloured pieces of paper represent their savings.
[7] Mahila Milan have been active in advocating the earmarking of vacant land for the homeless, and designing strategy to help the poor into their own homes.
In 1995, the government of Maharashtra integrated pavement dwellers for the first time into the classifications of households entitled to land for relocation in the Slum Rehabilitation Act.
[9] In Dharavi, Mumbai's biggest slum, women joined Mahila Milan and asked for land to build permanent homes on.