A 3 month placement to help consolidate and analyse survey and mapping data for slum areas in the cities of Maharashtra. The data helps provide baseline information for development plans such as housing and sanitation plans. Shelter Associates works with slum dwellers to create holistic development plans, bridging the gap between slum dwellers and local government.

What work will I be doing?

The volunteer will work with the Shelter Associates social workers on data entry using SA software and will help check the data using MS Access and Excel. They will work on the creation of web pages for each slum using HTML and PHP to interface with the data in a MySQL database. The volunteer will also compile a report to document any changes and improvements to the methodology. They will also investigate further how to display GIS and Google Earth outputs more fully on the website. For more information http://www.shelter-associates.org/

Who will I be working for?

Shelter Associates is a NGO working in Pune, India comprising Architects, Social workers, GIS Experts and Community Workers. They work with the urban poor to facilitate and provide technical support to community-managed housing (slum rehabilitation) and infrastructure projects. Shelter Associates works in close partnership with Baandhani ('building together' in Marathi), which are collectives of poor men and women from informal settlements in Mahrashtrian cities.

Together their aims are to:

• Promote community participation in housing and infrastructure projects for the poor
• Promote and support community-led housing projects
• Promote and support community-managed settlement improvement projects
• Support the formation of savings and credit groups which work for poor women
• Create a database of poor settlements in Pune

One of the main obstacles to effective urban planning in India is a lack of up-to-date, comprehensive and sufficiently detailed information about urban areas. This lack of information is a major reason behind the failure of urban municipalities to include informal settlements (known as slums) in city-wide planning and urban development. To address this, Shelter Associates/Baandhani has been working over the last few years to develop the use of slum surveys and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for collating information about slums for inclusive urban planning.

What skills or experience do I need?

Required:

• Experience programming with PHP and MySQL
• Experience with large amounts of data in MS Excel spreadsheets or Access databases
• Report writing skills
• Computer scientist, mathematician or similar

Desired:

• Experience with GIS (in particular GeoMedia)