Empowerment of Women through a Colourful slum-project : A case of the slum-upgrading project in Kampung Tridi of Indonesia

Sammanfattning: This study aims to evaluate if a slum-upgrading project in 2016 in Malang, Indonesia lead to empowerment of the women living in the neighbourhood. The study uses the concept of Empowerment by Naila Kabeer as a theoretical lens and focuses on women’s resources, agency and achievement after the project was carried out. The study was conducted as a Minor Field Study, which relied mainly on semi-structured interviews, which were complemented with personal observation. The respondents were selected purposively: meaning only those who participated in the painting project. The study findings are limited to the case explored and do not thus aim to a generalization on other projects in Indonesia. Findings are however informative for similar projects in similar contexts. The findings indicate that women were initially excluded from official decision-making during the project. In spite of this, however, the project enabled women to be more active in the economy to organize their own meetings and become responsible for the communal cleaning and events in the area. This participation led women to also have more to say in the community and they have been able to increase their savings and set goals for their families and children, which was impossible before the existence of the slum-upgrading in the area.