It's hard to believe that it's been almost two years since Jockin died, on October 13, 2018.  Hard because for so long, and in so many ways, and in so many places, Jockin played such a big part of our work in the Asia region. So big that many of our ways of looking at things, of conjuring opportunities out of nothing, of understanding "no" to mean "maybe," and of believing in poor people can be traced to this man.  It is as though, as his long-time colleague and friend Sheela Patel put it, "Jockin has not left the room."
 
This book, which has just been finished, brings together stories and tributes from many of the people who worked with Jockin and learned from him over the years and around the world.  It was put together with great tenderness and affection by the far-flung editorial team of Sheela Patel, Joel Bolnick, David Satterthwaite, Indu Agarwal and Holly Ashley.
 
To download a PDF of the book, please go to the "LIBRARY" tab of this ACHR website, and you'll find the book under the "Special Publications" set.
 
Here's a blurb from the back cover: 
 
Jockin Arputham redefined the role of slum dwellers - first in Mumbai, then in India and then globally. For more than fifty years, he sought to ensure that the residents of slums and informal settlements and their organisations were at the centre of designing and implementing solutions. He founded the first National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) in India and was one of the founders of Slum Dwellers International (SDI).
 
In this book, forty people describe their work with Jockin and reflect on what he taught them. These people range from government ministers, to staff from international agencies, to academics and senior civil servants and to NGOs and many members of the slum dweller federations he helped to found. Their accounts include descriptions of Jockin’s work with federations in many nations.
 
These written pieces fill in many gaps in our knowledge of Jockin and the momentous social and political changes he drove and inspired. Jockin received many awards and accolades, including the Magsaysay Award, the Asian of the Year Award and the Skoll Award. He was also nominated for the Nobel Peace prize, along with SDI. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri Award. But this book also describes the years of Jockin’s work in the 1970s, when he began organizing to fight evictions, and was constantly in jail or on the run.