On the Warrior Path!

Hi! Thank you for visiting my blog! I look forward to sharing my journey to the Warriors without Weapons program with you! Today, I wanted to share a little video that a friend helped me make on Dharavi. The two of us spent about a week in the famous Mumbai slum, documenting whatever caught our eye, trying to capture the chaos and energy of the place. It was edited in a hurry, but it's okay:) It still gives a good snapshot of what it feels like: Dharavi was important for me since it was where I began to understand urban communities more deeply, as well as the socio-economic and political factors that shape our cities, from skyscrapers to slums. I started to think about the meaning of community, of citizens' rights and community engagement. It sparked a thought process that has brought me to where I am today, ready to take the next step in this search!  Turning from thinker to doer – my motivations The first question I asked myself as I began to prepare myself fo...

Warriors without Weapons About a year and a half ago, I first heard about Warriors without Weapons from a friend who had been part of the program in 2012. As we sat in his apartment on that cool November evening, Mukund described to me how the month that he spent in Brazil, working together with an inspiring and enthusiastic group of people, had transformed him. Every single moment of the time that he was in Santos – working long hours under the sun, singing songs with the neighbourhood kids, and learning to love in some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the city, each moment had left an indelible mark on his being, and had really taught him about the meaning of community. Community participation is an integral part of the transformation philosophy The idea of community was something I had been pondering over for a while. A few months earlier I had completed my thesis focussing on a migrant community in Dharavi, a slum in Mumbai. The research had been eye opening, but ra...