Last month, the film Slumdog Millionaire won eight Academy Awards including best picture for its captivating and hopeful story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who wins 20 million rupees on India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" and reconnects with his childhood friend, Latika. The film is a rags to riches tour-de-force profiling Mumbai in all its glory as India’s entertainment and financial capital while also powerfully illustrating the crushing oppression and injustice faced by Mumbai’s poor, especially the children in the slums.

While Slumdog Millionaire’s depiction of oppression and injustice in Mumbai is dead-on reality, its inspiring message of hope is a make-believe Bollywood fantasy. A recently completed study sponsored by JVI of the slums of Mumbia documents its grim realities: illegal debt slavery, sex trafficking, abusive child labor, hazardous employment conditions, as well as a lack of adequate housing and sanitation, health care, education, and legal representation.

Real hope for families and children living in Mumbai’s teeming slums will not ultimately come through glittering game shows. Instead, we believe it is the work of individuals and organizations empowered by God’s grace that will ultimately transform Mumbai into a city ordered by His standards of love and justice.

To strengthen these efforts, JVI is currently partnering with local leaders to form a “Mumbai Justice Resource Center." The center will serve local organizations working to eradicate human trafficking, empower slum dwellers, and ensure access to justice for all. Our hope is that the center will serve as a catalyst to help bring lasting hope to this great city’s most vulnerable men, women and children.

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