slum dwellers

You know there is a saying that ‘you can’t see the forest because of the trees’.  I have often wondered about that statement and applauded the guy who came up with it.  Because it is true!! Often we are so used to seeing what is in front of us that we rarely step back and admire the greater picture.

Over the last couple of months, we have been so engrossed in the humanitarian crisis that is currently affecting Sri Lanka that nothing else is as important.  The news and the blogs have been awash with claims and counter claims  as the battle has spread to cyberspace.  As aid agencies, it has been easy to get caught up in the immediate disaster that very often, other equally pressing needs have been overlooked or pushed down the priority list.  As the displaced get all the attention and focus, those who are equally in need without much attention get forgotten.

The urban poor are by themselves a separate entity.  The ‘forgotten people’ as I called them once in a previous blog.  Equally deserving of our attention yet getting a minute fraction of it during normal times, during emergencies, the attention given to them is nil.  I heard stories during the tsunami of beggars in Colombo making the journey east or south wards to get what was being handed out to tsunami survivors, purely because no one was giving them in Colombo.

I bring this up because recently I had to pay a visit to one of the slums in Colombo where one of the beneficiaries of our child support program was living.  The child’s mother had suddenly died and we were there to pay our respects.  Visiting there after having visited the camps in Vavunia was an eye opener for me.

Slums in Colombo are probably like any other developing country’s capital, although the city displayed in Slum Dog Millionaire is probably one of the extreme types.  Houses are cramped close together and you will find people of all faiths and ethnicities living peacefully and in a sense of co-existence and dependency.  We have often debated that in order for us to develop our conflict resolution program; we should actually consult the people in the urban slums since they seem to have got the right form.

The defining thing about the slums is that whilst people may have houses or what can be described as houses, there is often poor sanitation and water facilities.  So toilets and bathing facilities are common and it is not rare to see people cooking, washing clothes and bathing on the road.  During the rainy season, inevitablby it becomes a fast flowing flood of raw sewage down the road and into your house.  If you are unlucky to be living in areas that always get flooded, every year, without fail, you will suffer from flooding or worse, your house may be built on marshy land which means 365 days a year, you are water logged.

Visiting this child’s house where there were a few possessions lying around, I was struck by the sheer hopelessness of the situation.  This child and his sister and mother were living in what could be described as a two bedroom place, except that the bedroom was in the kitchen and the living room doubled up as another bedroom, dining room and store room.  I am not even sure where the bathroom was.  The mother had died suddenly and here were these two kids without anyone to fend for them.  Their mother had been a day labourer just making ends meet whilst their father was a three wheel taxi driever who had been murdered about 4 years ago.  So there was nothing for them.  No house or investment or estate or $500 million legacy left to them as had been left to now the world famous orphans.

These people were living in abject poverty, rarely making ends meet, not being able to eat 3 square meals or getting the benefit of a proper childhood.  Our child sponsorship program was able to help them make ends meet with additional food and health checks and support for education.  So in this sense these particular kids were lucky.  However if you take the majority of children living under these conditions, then this would be their plight.  Open to crime or any other vices, the kids don’t seem to have a very rosy future.  In fact very few of them make it past high school before they start fending for themselbes.

The sad fact is that these kids and families are not less needy than those in the north and the east.  To some extent, the families who have been displaced by war or disaster are often luckier because they receive assistance from organisations like ours and they are on the government list.  The urban poor operate beyond the radar and out of sight.  It is very hard to get humanitarian agencies to work in these areas since it is not their mandate.  It is the mandate of the government or local civil society.

That said I am sure I will get various arguments for and against this blog.  My intention is not to spark a debate over politics or what agencies should and should not do.  It is more to reflect and revisit.  The needs are great to empower and uplift people from poverty.  Poverty is multidimensional with many faces.  Thus it requires many different approaches and ideas.  When we think about the needy in the camps in vavunia, let us also not forget those who live down our street or in our cities, for they are as equally in need.  Whilst we individually or collectively may not be able to influence or support what is happening in the north, this doesn’t mean that we can’t do something for those who we can help. I can’t help but make this final statement but at the end of the day   if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make that change