Latest News
January 2024
We have stopped work in Kolkata after completing the addressing of the underserved communities there – some 200,000 addresses for nearly 1,000,000 people. We have decided to now set up this website as an information resource for anyone who is interested in doing work like us. Please go to the following page for more information: How To Do What We DidAugust 2023
The team from Children in Need India continue to do amazing work. To date they have assigned PlusCode addresses to over 30,000 dwellings and continue to do so at a rate of over 1,000 per week. This means of the 240,000 dwellings to be addressed we have now done 195,000. Only 45,000 left to do!
November 2022
Very exciting news: Children in Need India, regarded as one of the most influential institutions working for poor children in India, have agreed to carry on the work we started in Kolkata. We are very pleased with this development for us and for them. Not only will addressing (using PlusCodes) be provided to the underserved communities in Kolkata, our work will help Children in Need in their day to day work serving these underserved communities also.
July 2022
An excellent report card showing how far we have come since 2012:
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/the-address-of-the-future/
Thank you to all our supporters.
October 2021
We have not been able to work due to COVID.
February 2019
Our addressing activity continues at the rate of nearly 3,000 per week and we have addressed over 75,000 dwellings (nearly 300,000 people). See our 4th annual report here:
January 2019 - Report for Trustee Donors and Supporters
December 2018
More good news. Since June of 2018 we have been working much more closely with Google (and using their open source 'plus codes' to provide unique geo based postal addresses).
Addressing the Unaddressed and Google together hope to:
- finish providing an address to all 1.4 million bustee (slum) dwellers in Kolkata, by 2020.
- build out Kolkata as an exemplar city for other cities in India and elsewhere in the world.
- by the end of 2020, develop and put in place tools and processes to easily enable other organizations to replicate our approach to addressing unplanned urban settlements in other cities both in India and around the world.
January 2018
More good news. Our work in Ward 58, Kolkata continues. To date we have addressed 32,923 dwellings in 63 separate slum areas in Kolkata across 13 municipal wards and carried out household surveys which include a population of over 120,000 people. To find out all our recent news please see our third annual report here:
January 2018 - Report for Trustee Donors and Supporters
June 2017
More good news. Our work in Ward 80, Kolkata is completed. To date we have addressed 20,996 dwellings in 13 separate slum areas in Kolkata and carried out household surveys which include a population of 69,969 people.
May 2017
Citiscope writes 'This NGO got Google to register slum lanes'
March 2017
Reuters news agency came to visit and wrote 'how a simple address unlocks new life for Indian slum dwellers'. Read more..
January 2017
The Guardian newspaper London reports on our work to help achieve the United Nations SDGs, particulalty SDG 11. Read more..
October 2016
More good news. Our work in Narkel Danga, Kolkata (Kolkata) is completed and so we have addressed to date 15,820 dwellings in 9 separate slum areas.
We are working on a plan to double this number by the end of October 2017.
We have committed to UN Habitat's Quito Implementation Plan that we will have addressed all Kolkata's urban slums within 10 years.
Thank you to all our supporters.
Here is our report to donors and supporters for October 2016.
October 2016 - Report for Trustee Donors and Supporters
May 2016
We present our solution, and how it fits into the new world of postal delivery and autonomous vehicles, to the prestigious Rutgers Business School at their 24th conference on postal and delivery economics at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy May 2016.
April 2016
More good (and amazing) news: our work in Panditiya, Khalighat and Hastings (all slums areas in Kolkata) is completed and so we have addressed a further 5,338 dwellings, population18,883 people. This has been done in just 4 months with just 5 wonderful staff on the ground - effectively doubling our overall to date totals to 10,724 dwellings, population 37,662 people and beating our recently self set target of 1,000 dwellings to be addressed per month. At this rate of addressing and increased working, and if the funding keeps coming, we could have all 1.7m people who live in the slums of Kolkata addressed by 2020. Thank you to all our supporters.
October 2015
Switzerland: Attending and presenting at Universal Postal Union Addressing Conference. Great support for addressing of slums by those present. Our latest update report was presented to delegates.
October 2015 - Report for Trustee Donors and Supporters
September 2015
India: More good news: we have finished our third and fourth slum in Kolkata - the dwellings in Chitpur slum along the river and at Bhagar around the biggest dump in West Bengal have now been addressed. - we now have addressed over 5,500 dwellings.
June 2015
India: More good news: we have finished our second slum in Kolkata - the dwellings in Panchanatala slum have now been addressed where all names collected have entered our database - we now have addressed over 4,500 dwellings.
February 2015
India: Great news! we have started our second slum - because of our robust and scalable systems after just 5 weeks, we have addresssed 1,320 homes in Panchanatala with just two workers! More news shortly.
October-2014
Ireland - Sophie Pigot interviewed at One Young World
September 2014
Sweden: At Post-Expo in relation to Alex Pigot's Presentation:
”That was one of the more interesting sessions I have attended in a Post-Expo and it was astonishing to realize that there is a well advanced, perhaps even more advanced than the established ones in Europe, addressing system in a slum in India”
- Ingemar Persson
Former Secretary General, PostEurop and moderator at Post-Expo.
September 2014
USA: technolgy reporter Hiawatha Bray of the Boston Globe newspaper suggests our system could aid disease control. Read More..
July 2014
India: Great news! we have finished our first slum - the work in Chetla is complete. Read More..
May 2014
Ireland: World Best News: that little blue sign above the door is making a world of difference!
October 2013
May 2013
Ireland: Alex Pigot Interviewd on Irish National radio on Addressing the Unaddressed.
October 2012
Quatar: Project to give postal address to inhabitants of slums.
November 2011
USA: Addressing the world: How geocodes could help billions start using the mail.
"At UN-Habitat, we are convinced that everyone has the right to an address. If you do not have an address you do not officially exist. An address is the key to a new life"
- Dr Joan Clos, Executive Director, United Nations Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat)
“With over one billion poor people living without adequate shelter and basic services in slums and squatter settlements, the challenge of the urban millennium is to improve the living environment of the poor … we must all dedicate ourselves to the task of ensuring that, one day, we will live in a world of cities without slums,”
- Hon. Professor. Anna Tibaijuka, retd. UN Under- Secretary-General and former Chief of UN-Habitat
“The poor themselves can create a poverty-free world. All we have to do is to free them from the chains that we have put around them!”
- Muhammad Yunnus - Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
“No calling is more noble, and no responsibility greater, than that of enabling men, women and children, in cities and villages around the world, to make their lives better”
- Kofi Annan - Elder and Secretary General United Nations 2000
“We must allow all men and women to be dignified agents of their own destiny”
- Pope Francis addressing the United Nations General Assembly on the day of the signing of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, September 2015
"It is only when the voices of the poor and vulnerable, who have a stake in shaping their future, are heard and heeded that development can become sustainable."
- Ela Bhatt, Elder, ‘gentle revolutionary’ and Founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association in India
"Peux ce que veux. Allons-y."
- Roméo Dallaire - Humanitarian and UN Peacekeeper
"It can be done, play your part."
- Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, founding President of Tanzania
“Four billion people are excluded from the rule of law, as the lack of a legal identity often prevents them from enjoying their rights as citizens. Setting up an addressing system is the first step towards tackling that issue".
Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, United Nations Development Programme.
