Slums, Squatter Settlements And Sorrow

Slums are poorly built housing settlements usually with a minimum of 10 households. Slums illegally located on land that belongs to the government, public organizations and other organization are called squatter settlements. These squatter settlements house extremely poor people who have no access to land of their own and so “squat” on empty land.  Bangladesh has the highest number of slum dwellers – 60% of the total urban population – in the entire South Asian region.

The basic structures in squatter settlement are small in size, made of low-quality, cheap materials such as- polythene sheet, straws, used corrugated iron sheet and wood. The low cost and low maintenance nature of these settlements and the ease with which they can be set up and expanded make them an ideal housing option for the growing low-income urban population.

However, life for these slum-dwellers isn’t pleasant, to say the least. Primarily- these settlements are poorly built, overflowing with people, and lack of sanitation services or even water and electricity supply is apparent. Slum areas are usually frowned upon by the upper echelons of society as they are seen as hubs for social problems such as crime, alcohol and drug addiction, mental illness, trafficking, rape and suicide. They may also be labelled as ‘unclean’ given the high disease rates in most slum areas, which can easily be attributed to unsanitary living conditions and lack of basic health care or medicine.

Most slum inhabitants are involved in the informal sector of the economy, engaging in low paying jobs such as rickshaw-pulling, vending on the streets or working as domestic maids. This means they cannot rely on their incomes to improve their living standards and so the slums and squatter settlements of Bangladesh continue to paint a picture of poverty, neglect and wasted potential. Perhaps the saddest of the slum dwellers are the children who are often deprived of their basic rights to education, healthcare and sanitation. Extreme poverty forces much of these children into the inhuman practice of child labour.

The tin shed ‘houses’ called slums are plenty and seen all around by everyone but the neglect with which slum dwellers are treated never seems to look any more hopeful. Adamant to bring about some positive changes in their lives, we at Durnibar Foundation refuse to neglect the millions living in slums and squatter settlements.

Every year Durnibar Foundation hosts its biggest fundraising event “Hunger Action”, in which volunteers spread out throughout Dhaka City and raise a large amount of funds. These funds are used to purchase food for around 50 underprivileged families, who live in slums. These families are provided with food throughout the entire year through bimonthly “Save the Starving” events under our project “Feeding Bangladesh”. The aim of these events, is to not only provide these poor families with food and much needed nutrition but to also give them an escape route from child labour and illiteracy; the children in these families will no longer need to try and earn for food and can avoid child labour and instead attend school. We also have an annual Winter Clothes Drive event in an attempt to help underprivileged slum dwellers and rural inhabitants survive the bitter winter, through which warm clothes and blankets are donated to the ones who need it most.

When more members of society stop looking down at slum dwellers and start to uplift them instead, these underprivileged individuals can start saying goodbye to their sorrows, and it is this type of change and development that Durnibar Foundation wants to help facilitate.