way2go! 7. Coursebook, Schulbuch

84 SEMESTER CHECK Read the text about a slum in Mumbai, India. First decide whether the statements (1–7) are true (T) or false (F) and put a cross ( ) in the correct box. Then identify the sentence in the text which supports your decision. Write the first four words of this sentence in the space provided. There may be more than one correct answer; write down only one. The first one (0) has been done for you. READING 1 Semester check 01 !! LESEN B2 Ich kann längere Texte, auch Berichte und Artikel, zu aktuellen Fragen sowie literarische Texte selbstständig lesen und verstehen. “It feels wonderful”: How a Mumbai slum became a riot of colour When Dedeepya Reddy travelled to work on the Mumbai metro, her spirits would sink at the sight of the slum of Asalpha. Perched on a hilltop, every bit of it was grey, grubby and depressing. Only the blue tarpaulin sheets used to protect the huts from rain provided some colour. “The metro and the road seemed so developed, and this slum looked so different,” says Reddy, 31, co-founder of a digital media agency. “It didn’t fit in. I thought of what could be done with minimum resources. Colours make me happy, so I thought, ‘Why not paint the homes to brighten them up?’” Asalpha has an ugliness common to all Mumbai slums. The odd pot plant aside, these areas offer little by way of aesthetic cheer to the 10 million people – more than half the city’s total population of 18 million – who live there. With her partner Terence Ferreira, Reddy got to work on a plan to transform Asalpha. Having persuaded Snowcem Paints to provide 400 litres of paint and brushes, she began an online campaign called ‘Chal Rang De’ (‘Let’s Paint It’) asking for volunteers to spend a weekend painting the walls. Before she went to work in earnest, though, she had to find out if the residents liked the idea. “They wanted to know why we wanted to do it. No one had ever done anything for them, so they were suspicious. Others wondered if coloured walls would really change anything in their lives,” she says. Ravindra Sankpal, a 27-year-old construction manager who lives in Asalpha, remembers the scepticism. “Some neighbours refused at first, because they thought it was an evil plan by builders to take over their homes,” says Sankpal, whose walls are scarlet. In December 2017, over three days, a team of roughly 400 volunteers began painting 175 walls. The atmosphere, says Reddy, was electric. The slum hummed with activity, chaos and excitement. The children got involved. Women kept up the supply of tea. At the end of an exhilarating weekend, the slum was alive with colour. The following weekend, Reddy and Ferreira asked local artists Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv