Urban design and social builder Geeta Mehta on creating dialogue, leveraging social capital and building relationships

From girl child education to vaccinations, the SoCCs programme works on the ground with communities.

As an adjunct professor of architecture and urban design at Columbia University and Founder-President, AI, Mehta is working with colleagues and university students in Pune on the Mula Mutha river that runs through the city, and which has seen high pollutant levels recently. “In the outskirts, there is still agriculture. We suggested that they bring it into the city on both sides of the river. Through phytoremediation and agriculture, there can be income generation, and also the possibility of fresh fruits and vegetables. There is currently resistance to this because of the high land prices, but we are saying, let’s look at the triple bottom line, why should you calculate profits with only one-third of the accounting table?”

In Lucknow, Mehta informs, AI is working with nearly 650 girls, by helping them stay in schools. Besides digital training, they are also providing counselling about reproductive health care, and how to handle parental pressure when it comes to early marriage. These girls return to their community and teach another 30 children in their neighbourhood, so quite literally, through ripple effect, many are empowered through SoCCs. AI has similar programmes in Ahmedabad, Ghana, Kenya and Washington. In India they have 14 live projects.

Through a dialectic, ‘SoCCratic dialogue’ AI works with each community to develop a SoCC earning menu tailored to local needs. Earning items could include vaccinating children, sending girls to high school, managing waste, providing childcare, planting trees, or paving streets. SoCCs redemption menus work for the entire community, which includes school fees, healthcare, skills training classes, home repairs, and telephone time. The ‘SoCC Market’ thus works with credits given to individuals and the community.

“SoCCs has proved that it’s ultimately about relationships. In Dharavi, where I co-founded URBZ (a research collective that emphasises on participatory design), we’ve seen how people leverage their own strengths to improve their neighbourhoods. There are 90 communities within Dharavi, who are supporting and helping each other, and if you can acknowledge and reward these capabilities, everyone benefits,” she says.

While issues of women across the world are largely the same, each continent where they work, poses different problems. From illiteracy and substance abuse in Washington to break down of families in Kenya to child pregnancies in India, the need for interventions goes beyond monetary benefits. Supporters and admirers of SoCCs have called it “the most transformative and simple idea since Mohammad Yunus launched the micro-credit movement.”

The idea of social justice permeates into conversations about successful cities as well. “My definition of a successful building has changed since I graduated. What does a building do to a person who doesn’t enter it? Does it have a comfortable sidewalk? Does it have a porosity that a passer-by can enjoy? Is it throwing out toxins from its air-conditioners? How does it contribute to the ecology? Does it have excess glass that makes birds dash against them? Do I feel safe walking by it?” she asks.

Ultimately it’s in creating dialogues that make societies and cities liveable. “It’s only when people take charge that development happens,” she says.