Reading jokes from my Bengali phrasebook brought smiles at the end of a weekly Chintan wastepicker meeting in Seemapuri, on the outskirts of Delhi. Weekly and bi-weekly meetings are the means by which Chintan stays in contact with wastepickers and helps them organize to address their issues. In Seemapuri, for example, Chintan recently helped female wastepickers organize to demand a toilet for their community (See my previous BLOG below, “The Seemapuri Toilet March.” This photo was taken by Mackenzie Berg

Yogesh, a member of the Chintan staff, prepares to hand out official Chintan Wastepicker ID cards to the attendees at his bi-weekly cycle kabari meeting in central New Delhi. The meeting is held in the famous Lodi Garden, a public park, which is easy for the cycle kabaris to reach and has space for them to park their bicycles. Usually one or two kabaris stand guarding the bicycles during the meeting.

Rajumathur, a Delhi cycle kabari, shows off his new Chintan ID card. Chintan views the cards as the first step towards helping the wastepickers attain professional recognition. According to wastepickers I have spoken to, the main advantage of having an ID card is that Delhi police are less likely to harass wastepickers with IDs. Chintan charges each wastepicker 40 ruppees ($1) per year for an ID card, the cost of producing them. This fee also gives the wastepickers a sense of ownership and pride in their ID cards. Every time I have seen Chintan staff handing out the cards the wastepickers receiving them have been very happy.

Fellow Advocacy Project Fellow Mackenzie Berg meets a cycle kabari at their weekly meeting and asks for a photo. Mackenzie has taken some amazing portraits of wastepickers during our work here and you can see them at this site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mackenzienicole/sets/72157605107403507/Attending many of the weekly Chintan meetings has given Mackenzie and I a unique opportunity to meet the wastepickers face-to-face this summer and see what genuinely good and hardworking people they are: an experience which I will always remember.