The young underprivileged writers of Savda Ghevra

Savda Ghevra, a resettlement colony on the north-western periphery of Delhi, has been a laboratory for documentary filmmakers, urban planners, researchers, architects both from India and abroad and a host of development organisations, corporate social responsibility (CSR) wings of business houses, all testing their pilot projects. So why is everyone flocking to Savda Ghevra with developmental projects? “It's Delhi's newest resettlement colony, is better organised, has better roads compared to other resettlement colonies and most importantly, people are cooperative and there is social harmony here, which is very important for organisations and individuals to carry out their work,” says Justin Jebakumar, director (Delhi), Habitat for Humanity, an international NGO, which helped build several houses in the colony. Everywhere in Savda Ghevra, there are signs of the government's flawed, callous idea of resettlement, and experimental engagement of a wide variety of individuals and organisations — there are water ATMs, a pilot project of the Delhi Jal Board where people get water using smart cards, septic tanks designed by a Lon-don-based architect, community development and alternative learning centres run by a host of NGOs, a community archive , where people preserve memories in the form of everyday objects, a facility called Savda Talkies, where inspiring, community- oriented movies are shown on a projector screen.