00:27Sometimes Paru barely makes it through a work day.
00:29Last summer, temperatures in Bangalore soared to more than 39 degrees Celsius.
00:35The city's more than 340,000 rickshaw drivers have almost no heat protection.
00:40The sun beats down on the rickshaw roof.
00:43Its seats heat up, and the breeze from driving provides little relief.
01:00The sun beats down on the rickshaw roof.
01:02Paru tells us that nearly 3,000 women now drive on Bengaluru's streets.
01:08Female drivers can be especially vulnerable to extreme heat.
01:12For example, when a driver has her period, the heat combined with this biological process
01:16puts an additional strain on the body.
01:19Paru herself recently collapsed from heat.
01:22She fears needing a restroom and not finding one, which can lead to drinking too little water.
01:52But rickshaw drivers are pushing for change.
01:54We're at a union event.
01:56Everyone here wants better working conditions for drivers.
02:00Paru is here too in her role as general secretary, and she has some concrete ideas.
02:16Here, people make a living from what others discard.
02:19Around 30,000 informal waste pickers keep the city's streets clean.
02:26Indira has been doing this for many years.
02:28For her too, hot summer days are the worst.
02:44Plastic, glass, cardboard, metals.
02:46Thanks to them, more than 380,000 tons of waste are returned to the recycling system every year.
02:54But when they look for somewhere to rest in the heat, they usually search in vain.
03:21In this room, people are working to improve the lives of waste pickers.
03:25The non-governmental organization, Hasirudala, operates in 18 cities,
03:30helping people during heavy rainfall and flooding, as well as during extreme summer heat.
03:37Wherever waste pickers have access to, the public spaces which waste pickers can access,
03:43how these existing public goods, public commons can be converted into cooling centers,
03:50so where they can rest, they also can store their material which is safer.
03:55They can also have access to drinking water and washrooms.
04:03Bengaluru has been part of C40, an international network of cities working on climate action and adaptation since 2015.
04:11As part of this, the city works with several organizations.
04:14The needs of informal waste pickers are now being heard,
04:17with some already receiving training on how to cope with extreme heat and weather.
04:24Not one single organization or not one single stakeholder can resolve everything.
04:29So we wanted to work as a collective and collaborator.
04:32So we are trying to see how each of the partners can use different expertise and their skills
04:39and work together to mitigate heat stress.
04:44And the city is doing more.
04:46To tackle urban heat, Bengaluru has created more than 280 acres of new green space.
04:52Another 200,000 seedlings have been planted through the Green Bengaluru program.
04:58Whether they are rickshaw drivers or waste pickers,
05:01it will take years for the new vegetation to provide shade.
05:05That's why the city is developing a heat strategy to protect vulnerable people now.
