Swadhaar works closely with local NGO’s in each area of operation.

The Kherwadi Social Welfare Association was started in Kherwadi, Bandra East, by Balasaheb Kher.  KSWA has been in the service of Kherwadi residents for over 75 years, mainly in the areas of healthcare and education. KSWA has been Swadhaar’s partner and gateway into the Kherwadi area. Yuva Parivartan is a movement launched by KSWA to help school dropouts, most of whom come from an underprivileged background. The movement seeks to motivate these dropouts to enroll themselves into short term vocational training courses, at a low fee. In addition, they also help students after they finish their courses. They have formed partnerships with companies and help their students to get a job with the company's suppliers or dealers. KSWA has successfully trained 1000 students since 1999, 60% of whom are now gainfully employed. Encouraged by this success, they are now ready to expand the program by creating more centers across Mumbai.

For more information, visit http://www.yuvaparivartan.org

The Nivara Hakk Suraksha Samiti was set up in 1981 as an umbrella movement to provide an alternative path of development for slums and footpath dwellers. Since then, Nivara Hakk has emerged as a voice for the dispossessed and homeless. Advocating the right of the poor to a home in the city, more than 40 slum pockets were protected from arbitrary eviction and demolition. It all started with the rehabilitation of one large slum community of over 350 families – Sanjay Gandhi Nagar – who had been evicted from Mumbai's Manhattan -- Cuffe Parade – in December 1985. The success story gave hope to both slum-dwellers in the city and government officials that another world was possible. Currently, Nivara Hakk is coordinating the largest urban rehabilitation effort in Asia -- the resettlement of over 20,000 hutment families living on the borders of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Over two decades, Nivara Hakk has intervened not only on civic and housing rights, but to provide aid and succor at the time of disasters and social conflict. These efforts have included sending medicine and relief materials after the massive earthquake of 1993 in Latur and Osmanabad, rehabilitating thousands of uprooted slum families during Mumbai’s 1992 communal strife, and setting up transit shelters for nearly 1000 families after the 2002 earthquake in the Kutch region of Gujarat. At the grassroots level, Nivara Hakk has set up balwadi schools and health posts in over a dozen Mumbai locations.

In 1992, the Rotary Club of Bombay formed Rotary Community Corps (RCCs) in the major slums of Mumbai. The RCCs would work in collaboration with Mohalla Committees (Community Committees) which were formed in response to the violence of the Mumbai riots earlier that year, to act as forces for communal harmony and social empowerment in these areas. In 2003, the Rotary Club added to the core objective of the RCCs and formed the Shakti Project (Shakti means ‘strength’).  Each Shakti RCC is made up of community leaders from the different religious groups in the slum, and members of the Rotary Club who act as advisors/ mentors. The founders of the Shakti Project believe that the root cause for communal disharmony is poverty, and “in order to foster lasting peace in the slums, developmental issues have to be addressed.” To this end, the RCC works with the social workers of the Shakti Project to highlight key developmental issues in the slum, and the nature of solutions required.  So far, the project has initiated 10 Shakti RCCs at different locations in Mumbai. Each RCC serves a population of approximately 100,000 people. The Shakti Project has worked on community projects such as healthcare, vocational training, employment, education and care for the aged.