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#Repost @officialhumansofbombay (@get_repost) ・・・ "I came to Bombay as a tourist, but when I saw that there were so many opportunities for work - I decided to make the move. All my life I've made leather goods, but when I came to Bombay I had to make it a profitable business...so I came to Dharavi. Here I found space, all the materials I require and a place to stay. People look at Dharavi as dirty - but it's home to thousands of people like me, who had no other way. Today, I possess an art of making leather bags ; even if I see someone carrying a particular bag, I can replicate it by looking at it for a few seconds. I'm a poor man but I've enrolled my son in Computer classes so he can digitalise our business...I'm trying to keep up with the way of the World. It's a simple concept - for India to grow, business has to grow. Whether we're big players or small players...if we have business we have money. Today my products are sold Internationally from this 10 by 10 room in a slum...but when it's worn abroad do people discriminate based on where it was made? Call it dirty, call it a slum -- but our products are A1. My only message to the PM would be - 'Chote business ko bhi badhao, Sarkar...India ussi tarah badega!"

A post shared by DharaviDictionary (@dharavidictionary) on

Hi, My name is Megha Gupta and I am raising funds for Wayshowers Foundation which is working towards skills training and overall development of craftsmen and their families in Dharavi. We are at present taking care of 100 craftsmen and need 5 lakh rupees to set up vocational training centre for craftsmen and activity centre for their children.Kindly support our cause by donating and sharing our fundraiser.

We are going to give incentives like payment of child's tuition fee to craftsmen to attend these training workshops via our points based program called Soccs and have several such benefits planned which improve their work skills and the standard of living of their families.

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DharaviMarket.com

Our Clients

  • I came to Dharavi just 4 years back but the people here have already become my family. I come from a village where everyone is sitting jobless today,there are no opportunities.Coming here gave me a livelihood, a means to live. I do miss my family,my home but would I go back? I don’t think so. Dharavi has taught me everything I know about a chemist shop as a business set up. Here I work for my employer but after another 2 years of experience and I hope to have my own store. These are the kinds of dreams I wouldn’t even dare to have back at my village and now I’m living them. Maybe in these two years I’ll be able to get my family here too and employ people from my village here!
  • We work here making bhajjis every single day. There are no holidays for us, everyday is the same. We work as a team here and at home. It’s been a very difficult time for us this past year, we might get kicked out of our own home! Our days are spent wondering what we will do if that happens. How will we afford rent? Where will we go? But, we hope the New Year brings some happiness into our lives, we hope we’re able to sort out our problems. Until then all we can do is smile and work. We’re always smiling.Waking up, coming here, serving our customers is what gives us happiness. We believe we should try to stay happy no matter what anyone says or does, our happiness is in our own hands.
  • Dharavi has a big food business of manufacturing chiki, channa, chakli, papad, bread, bun and mysore pak. If you walk down Dharavi Cross Road, you will find on either side shops laden with goods which have been manufactured and packed in the homes and lanes just behind these shops. Courtesy- Kalpana Sharma #dharavi #dharavimarket #dharavistory #dharavistories #inspire #inspirational #motivation #motivational #unityindiversity #papad #lijjatpapad #ghasitaram #unity #differentparts #gulabjamun #kajukatli #sweets #samosa #punjabi #bengali #maharashtrian #upwalebhaiya #pav #mithai #workingwomen #employment #womenemployment #barfee
  • Dharavi’s chiki-makers produce tons of the peanut brittle which is sold all over the city and outside. In addition to chiki and mithai, you will see many women rolling out papads. Some of them are supplying them to Lijjat papad. This is a women’s organization called Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad. It began in 1959 with a few women in central Bombay rolling out papads to earn some extra money. It has now grown to an organization with 40,000 members throughout India. Lijjat has 8,000 registered members in Mumbai, of whom around fifty live in Dharavi. These women travel to Bandra every day to collect the wet dough from which papads are made. Within a couple of days, they are back with the rolled out papads which have been dried in the sun. For their efforts, these women earn an average of Rs 50 to Rs 60 per day. Courtesy- Kalpana Sharma #dharavi #dharavimarket #dharavistory #dharavistories #inspire #inspirational #motivation #motivational #unityindiversity #papad #lijjatpapad #ghasitaram #unity #differentparts #gulabjamun #kajukatli #sweets #samosa #punjabi #bengali #maharashtrian #upwalebhaiya #pav #mithai #workingwomen #employment #womenemployment #barfee
  • The most interesting aspect of the trade is that each set of workers comes from a different part of India. Thus, Bengali workers make chamchams and rosogullas, Punjabis make ladoos and gulab jamuns, Maharashtrians make kaju katris and barfees and the UP bhaiyas make khoya and milk-based sweets as well as some of the savouries, like samosas. Ghasitaram employs around 200 workers who live in the compound or just across it. Courtesy- Kalpana Sharma #dharavi #dharavimarket #dharavistory #dharavistories #inspire #inspirational #motivation #motivational #unityindiversity #papad #lijjatpapad #ghasitaram #unity #differentparts #gulabjamun #kajukatli #sweets #samosa #punjabi #bengali #maharashtrian #upwalebhaiya #pav #mithai #workingwomen #employment #womenemployment #barfee
  • Settlements like Dharavi emerge from the life stories of people who inhabit them. They are not planned townships much desired as a solution to urban blight. The way they grow merges with the lives of the men and women who imbue them with a personality. Dharavi is a bustling, busy, chaotic settlement where nothing stands still. Almost anyone is willing to talk and talk at length. Dharavi is the intermingling of the stories of its residents-ordinary and extraordinary-of their lives, their histories and the history of the city of Mumbai. For men, Dharavi provides work and sustenance. For women, it means living in cramped surroundings, lack of privacy, difficulties of water and sanitation, and often carrying a triple burden of work. They work in their homes and also have to take up not just one but often two jobs. #dharavidictionary #dharavi #dharavimarket #dharavistory #dharavistories #inspire #inspirational #inspiration #motivational #motivation #hardwork #difficulttimes #jobs #sustenance #settlements #extraordinary #extraordinarylife
  • As people lived where they worked, inevitably Dharavi developed with enclaves that were exclusively inhabited by people from a particular region. Over time, the select nature of these settlements has altered. Yet there are still several settlements where almost everyone comes from a particular district. As a result, you have a ‘duplicate’ Tirunelvelli district (very clean just like the original) in one part, where only Tamil is spoken, or a ‘duplicate’ Jaunpur district, or Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh in another part. #dharavi #dharavidictionary #dharavimarket #dharavistory #dharavistories #motivation #motivational #inspire #inspirational #inspiration #struggle #duplicate #districts #jobs #stories #inspired #districts
  • Even within larger mixed settlements, there are sections which are dominated by a particular community. Thus, you find in one section of Transit Camp, built to accommodate those displaced when Dharavi’s 90 Feet Road was widened, a community of the Konchikoris, a group of itinerant magicians and performers, who came originally from Solapur. Today, apart from moneylending, they make brooms. What is common to all these groups is that they came to Bombay because of dire economic need. They were economic and environmental refugees. Under the grave circumstances like draught or debt, the communities tend to stick together, to help their own kind.Thus, when people from Tirunelvelli set up tanneries, they went back to their district to find workers. The Uttar Pradesh Muslims did the same. Over time it is these two communities that grew in numbers as leather was the main business in Dharavi. #dharavidictionary #dharavi #dharavimarket #dharavistory #dharavistories #inspire #inspirational #inspiration #motivational #motivation #didyouknow #faq #jobs #regions #district #mumbai #bombay #community
  • While the days of leather tanning are more or less over in Dharavi, finished leather goods have taken over as the main leather-based business. As you come to the end of 90 Feet Road and turn onto the Sion-Mahim link road, you see gleaming leather showrooms with names like Jazz, Leather craft, Step-in and Ideal Leather on either side of the road. Behind their plate glass windows are displayed the latest designs in leather handbags as well as briefcases and suitcases. Within their air-conditioned confines you find wallets, belts, photo-frames and all manner of leather goods. Many of these are new products made for retail or surplus or rejects from export orders placed with leather goods manufacturers in Dharavi. They sell these goods at half of what you would pay in similar shops in south Mumbai. Bargaining is the norm. Everyone works on narrow margins and is willing to sell the same product for a marginally lower price. . . Ref : Kalpana Sharma's Rediscovering Dharavi
  • This is the famous leather street that has made Dharavi a name even the rich of Mumbai now know. While the finished goods sit in air-conditioned splendour, the men who labour over these products have none of these comforts. They sit instead in cramped lofts or workrooms and work in bad light, poor ventilation and in stifling heat to produce the most beautifully finished and crafted leather goods.Most of those dealing in leather are either UP Muslims, or Muslims and Hindus from Tirunelvelli district. Estimates suggest that the annual turnover in the raw leather business in Dharavi is around Rs 60 crore, over Rs 50 crore in sheep and goat hides and the rest in buffalo and cow hides. . . Ref : Kalpana Sharma's Rediscovering Dharavi

What we do...

DharaviMarket.com is a for profit initiative aimed at making the skills of the squatter settlement more accessible to the middle/upper classes while providing the local, skilled craftsmen and artisans direct access to local and global markets. It aims at providing, world class, quality goods at cheap prices as one would directly buy from the manufacturers while giving the craftsmen a price worth their craft and effort.

It also aims to clear notions and misunderstandings about life in slums; slum dwellers are not criminals or beggars, they too have robust enterprising skills and close-knit community life.

In the long run we would like to use this platform to voice slum dwellers’ right to life, adequate housing and livelihood.

The illiterate but skilled, hardworking, enterprising residents of Dharavi haven’t exploited the potential of the worldwide web, we thought we could initiate this for them and so we went ahead and did it!

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