Helping the world’s urban poor
A visit to a neglected corner of one of the world’s capitals set the course for Alice Sverdlik’s future.
Sverdlik was a history major at the University when she visited a settlement on a city dump in Asuncion. An intern with an environmental group in Paraguay, she marveled at the resourcefulness of the settlers, who lived off the refuse and made money by recycling glass and transporting scrap metal with horse-drawn wagons.
“People were living in the shadows of towering mountains of garbage in tiny homes without sanitation,” she says. “I was horrified to see how people lived, but impressed that they still found ways to support themselves.”
This past summer, the Phi Beta Kappa graduate headed to Nairobi and volunteered with Pamoja Trust, an organization dedicated to providing housing, services, and security of tenure for the urban poor in Kenya's informal settlements.
Bringing Real Change
Sverdlik, AB,’06, worked on two projects that could bring about change for residents in one of Nairobi’s most notorious slums, which has been without a water supply since October 2007. Nairobi’s water company cut services in order to undermine a gang exerting a stranglehold over the supply.
“These people must endure extremely hazardous conditions, often spending years, or even their whole lives, in communities without basic services and decent housing,” Sverdlik says. “At the same time, they always welcomed me into their homes and made me feel that together we could effect real changes.”
One project’s goal was to establish 45 water kiosks throughout four villages to serve 50,000 people, in addition to creating connections for individual plots of land. “This should promote substantial improvements in health and quality-of-life issues, and to really reshape the status and governance of the area,” Sverdlik says.
Sverdlik’s second project analyzed data from seven informal settlements to investigate differences between structure owners and tenants, since housing in Kenyan slums is usually rented. She examined whether incomes were higher for structure owners, whether rents increased when tenants had water or sanitation, and similar questions to help shape policies appropriate for low-income rental areas. She also helped edit an inventory of Nairobi’s 170 slums and supported a campaign to stop the eviction of 7,000 households living near a pipeline.
Marshall Scholar and Beyond
Her work in Nairobi reinforced her commitment to housing issues. “My time with Pamoja was very invigorating and made me more secure in what I want to do. It’s still extremely challenging—working on housing can be more indirect than something like health interventions; there’s rarely a quick fix for shelter problems,” she says.
Sverdlik spent a year after graduation working with AmericCorps. The longtime human rights activist found a position in Chicago with the Sergeant Shriver National Center on Poverty Law working on urban housing issues. She then realized that by focusing on housing, she could unite her passions for poverty alleviation, health-care advocacy, human rights, and the environment.
The recipient of a 2008 Marshall Scholarship, Sverdlik will continue her studies this fall to complete two Master’s programs at the London School of Economics—earning both an MSc in Social Policy Research and an MSc in Urbanization and Development.
The recently launched Urbanization and Development program is one of the first development degrees to concentrate on poverty as an urban issue. It’s a rare academic focus, and with a long resume of work with Amnesty International, the Shriver Center, a free medical clinic in Dallas, and Chicago’s Night Ministry, Sverdlik is poised to be a leader in the field.
She eagerly plans to return next April to Nairobi to continue her research. Ultimately, she hopes to pursue a career with an NGO. “I see myself taking an advocate role through research,” she says. “I find studying people’s past struggles deeply meaningful, and I hope to use policy research that will assist others in the present.”
By Libby Ellis
