If girls living in slums are to get ahead in life, it is essential that they be able to attend school just as much as their male counterparts. Yet according to the NGO TearFund, “ten percent of school-age girls in Africa do not attend school during menstruation or drop out completely at puberty because of the absence of clean and private sanitation facilities in schools.” As a consequence, solving the taboo issue of the menses has become an important focus of many NGOs and social businesses operating in the Nairobi slums. Read more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Fri, 07/06/2012 – 01:00
Ridding Nairobi of the mountains of trash that threaten to engulf the city has been a hot topic for the last couple of decades. The issues to contend with range from what to do with the heaps of bags that are suffocating the city and its rivers, and how to close down the Dandora dump site that should have been decommissioned decades ago, to how we can create an environment that encourages recycling and provides jobs for low-income people. The reality, however, is that although the topic remains hot and the issues ever more pressing, nobody ever seems to actually do anything about it. Learn more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Fri, 06/29/2012 – 01:00
Before October 2009, Kibera, second-largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa, was a blank spot — one that had been photographed and filmed thousands of times but that no one had ever attempted to document properly. That’s when Map Kibera‘s Mikel Maron and Erica Hagen, alongside a group of 13 enthusiastic youth, sought to put Kibera on the map, providing a source of public, open, and shared information that would, they hoped, be used to enhance living standards in the settlement. Read more.
Submitted by Nairobi — Tue, 05/22/2012 – 01:00
Just before dawn on May 13, the Nairobi River broke through a dam upstream from the city and flooded parts of Mathare, carrying with it a number of shacks where people were asleep. One woman was reported killed, while by Monday the unofficial number of displaced people had reached 600. This comes after a Kenya Red Cross warning that since March 2012, 50 have died and tens of thousands have been displaced in Kenya as a result of flooding. What can slum dwellers do to protect themselves from the onslaught of rain during flood season? Read more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Wed, 05/16/2012 – 01:00
Most informal settlements in Nairobi lack running water, sewage systems, or any semblance of state-provided infrastructure. That’s due in part to the government’s refusal to acknowledge those settlements’ existence — and, thus, that of the many hundreds of thousands of people who live in them. Muungano Trust and Pamoja Trust joined together to map and enumerate the residents of Nairobi slums, helping them to unite and demand recognition of their basic rights. Read more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Tue, 05/08/2012 – 01:00
Increasing access to energy in Africa is vital for further development, especially given its population growth and escalating urbanization. By 2030, it is expected that nearly half of Africans will be living in urban areas, with the urban population exceeding rural population by 100 million by 2035. At current electrification rates, in 2030, 654 million Africans will have no access to power. Kenya’s government is looking at options for significantly increasing private participation in Kenya’s power sector, and is using the World Bank Group to leverage investments. Learn more.
Submitted by Nairobi — Wed, 04/25/2012 – 01:00
You wake up, as you do every morning, knowing you’ll soon be squeezed into an overcrowded matatus and headed for work — and that the nearest toilet is a ten-minute walk from your tin shack. There you’ll stand in line for another ten minutes, then pay to use an overflowing and odorous latrine. For many in Nairobi’s slums, the “flying toilet” — a thin plastic bag used in your one-room dwelling, then flung as far away as possible in the dead of night — is the only viable alternative to this vile scenario. But the health implications are obvious; hence the determination of a group of MIT researchers and a Swedish NGO to come up with a better solution. Read more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Wed, 03/28/2012 – 01:00
Kibera Community Youth Programme (KCYP), a community-based organization in Kibera, entered into a partnership with Nairobits Digital Design School, a college that offers sponsorships to the needy, to establish a unique computer training course. The idea was to devise a course that would help bridge the digital divide between the youth of Kibera and the rest of the world. In fact, there are many computer courses going on currently within Kibera. However, this one is quite different. Learn more.
Submitted by Nairobi — Tue, 03/13/2012 – 01:00
The hours of darkness are a dangerous time for a woman to be out in an unlit Nairobi slum. A group of researchers from Stanford University have recently been trying to address this issue in a pilot project they are running in Mathare called “Makmende” — the name of a superhero and Internet phenomenon. The project attempts to harness the power of 3G GPS mobile phones by establishing a central hub from which an escorted group’s progress is monitored and the information is relayed back to users, as the group proceeds along a predefined route. Learn more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Tue, 02/21/2012 – 00:00
With food insecurity a simple fact of life for many in Nairobi’s Mathare slum, Mathare residents are learning to supplement insecure food sources with hands-on alternatives. One popular approach to sustainable urban agriculture in Nairobi’s impoverished neighborhoods is the Farm in a Sack concept: filling a burlap sack with a core of rocks surrounded by soil, then growing crops out of little holes in the side. This “vertical” method increases dramatically the amount of produce that can be grown: instead of the 15 sukuma wiki plants produced per square meter by ordinary means, the “Farm in a Sack” method can enable a family to grow up to 60. Read more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Mon, 02/20/2012 – 00:00
O Brasil tem o maior número de trabalhadores domésticos do mundo. De acordo com o relatório da Organização Mundial do Trabalho existem 7,2 milhões de trabalhadores domésticos no país, dos quais 6,7 são mulheres (93 por cento do total). O Governo Brasileiro tem reportado que destes trabalhadores um numero cerca de 1,5 milhões estão formalizados o que significa que tem carteira de trabalho assinada e alguns benefícios, como licença médica. O 80 por cento restante ainda não tem registro adequado e benefícios.
Com referencia ao trabalho de empoderamento ao trabalhador doméstico ao nível local, vale destacar o papel desempenhado por Doméstica Legal no Rio de Janeiro, uma empresa provedora de serviços jurídicos e financeiros a empregadores. Esta foi criada em 2004 para apoiar aos empregadores no cumprimento da legislação referente ao emprego justo. A empresa também oferece uma pagina na internet e aulas focadas nos trabalhadores domésticos para eles conhecer seus direitos e deveres, além da legislação local, destacando a importância da assinatura de contratos formais com seus empregadores. Em 2009 Doméstica Legal criou uma ONG com o mesmo nome para apoiar o desenvolvimento do marco regulamentário em favor dos trabalhadores domésticos no país e continuar os esforços pelo seu reconhecimento e formalização.
One of the organizations presented in the series is Schaduf, a social enterprise launched in 2011 by two brothers, Sherif and Tarek Hosny. Schaduf refers to a tool used by ancient Egyptians to lift water from a low level to high one. The organization aims to move low-income families out of poverty by providing them with the opportunity to own urban rooftop farms, also known as micro gardens, that produce healthy and sustainable crops. Schaduf provides the urban farmers with technical training and with supplies.
According to a survey carried out by the Financial Derivatives Company, prices in Lagos are rising largely due to increases in food prices, because of food supply shortfalls. Increases in prices make access to food difficult for the urban poor, so to tackle the problem of food supply, organizations are working to find out where the shortages come from, and who suffers from these breaks in food supply. To this end, Food Bank Nigeria organizes research to better understand its environment and to help design effective food relief program in various Nigerian cities, including Lagos. Read more or join the discussion.
Lagos is a small city with a large population. Lagos state is the smallest in Nigeria, with an area of 356,861 hectares of which 75,755 hectares are wetlands, yet it has over 5 percent of the national population, making it the most populous state in the nation. The city is overpopulated and still growing, with a growth rate of 8 percent. This issue causes congestion problems in various facets of city life, but most especially in transportation. Lagos is notorious for its heavy traffic, where a 30-minute journey can take two hours on a weekday. Congestion saps the population of energy, contributes to an unhealthy lifestyle, and generally makes for a less productive workforce. Read more or join the discussion.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) represents one of the many successful south-south relationships in Africa, connecting 15 West African states to promote mobility, trade, and ultimately faster growth of the member nations. These states include Nigeria and Ivory Coast, who have taken their relationships one step further to establish stronger trade ties. Read more or join the discussion.
Education is crucial for a bright future, but Nigeria’s 2012 unemployment rate was 23.9 percent. The nation’s youth, both educated and uneducated, bears the brunt of this unemployment. The problem arises not only from lack of employment opportunities, but from lack of employable skills. Lagos has a large population but has managed to have the lowest level of unemployment amongst the nations’ 36 states: 7.6 percent. The city has been able to attain this rate due to a number reasons: some might attribute it to the wealth of companies and industries, which is plausible. However, the contributions of the government and civil society organisations that encourage youth entrepreneurship, job placements, skills acquisition, and education schemes are an important piece of the puzzle. Read more or join the discussion.
The toxicity situation in Accra is very challenging to the health conditions of the city’s population. This situation is aggravated by a high level of urbanization and a large population. These chemical substances are from e-waste, industrial and institutional waste-discharge, environmental, and household waste. In the landfills where electronic waste substances are disposed of, children, mostly boys between the ages of 11 and 18, take apart the electronic scrap, often with their bare hands, burn it, and sometime use stones to extract metal parts. These activities pose many health challenges to these young children and others in the city, like itchy eyes, lung and kidney infections. Read more or join the discussion.
“Welcome to Lagos” was a 2010 BBC documentary that introduced Vocal Slender to the world. Vocal – real name Eric Obuh – was a rapper by night, and a scavenger, at the Olusosun rubbish dump, by day. Read more.
Labour laws exist to protect employees from exploitation by their employers. Unfortunately, many companies and factories in Lagos do not adhere to these laws, leading to overworked, underpaid workers who perform in hostile, unhealthy, and dangerous work environments. In one recent case in Lagos, an employee lost his life while on duty in a Chinese-owned nylon manufacturing company with over 500 factory employees. This incident set off a series of worker protests against labour violations and unjust employment conduct. Read more or join the discussion.
The Makoko riverfront is an informal residential area that is Lagos’ largest and most visible slum. It is located right beside the busiest highway in the state, which is the most used route to link the mainland to Lagos Island. Makoko village is mostly made up of fishermen and their families, and it is here that the famous floating school is being built. This informal community has been a bone of contention for the state government for three main reasons: it is unsanctioned, shanties have expanding beyond the established boundary, and some of the erected shanties are dangerously close to electric lines and poles. Read more or join the discussion.
How do we explain the negligence towards safety in such a vital sector? One explanation is that 42 percent of the owners of garment factories are in fact lawmakers, and proper enforcement of the safety regulations would reduce their profits. They have little incentive to facilitate the enforcement of these laws. The major buyers, another important group of stakeholders, have taken initiatives such as producing training films and conducting private audits, but these initiatives have made only a small impact. The trainings are ineffective when confronted with real crisis situations, and the private audits have been proved to be futile since some of the factories that had passed these audits experienced major accidents soon after.
Aalam Wassef, an OpAntiSH coordinator, stated in an interview in the Egypt Independent that there is a deliberate attempt to scare women from protesting, “making them feel threatened and unsafe.” Most of the cases that OpAntiSH has intervened in have been “coordinated and organized mobs of harassers that are armed and most likely paid to do so.”
In an official a press release, OpAnti SH announced that there were 46 reported incidents of sexual assault in the June 30 protests, but the group assumes that there were many others that went unreported. In order to reduce the number of incidents, the group has suggested illuminating the entrances to Tahrir and using state media outlets through the Egyptian and Radio Television Union to create public service announcements and anti-harassment campaigns.
The state runs a program for the city under the Lagos State AIDS Control Agency, which aims to fight prevalence of HIV/AIDS within the city. Its programs include monitoring and evaluation, care and support outreach, counselling and testing services, and information and communication outreach programs regarding the prevention and treatment of HIV. The program has set up over 50 HIV counselling and testing centers (HCTs) around the city of Lagos, making the program available to both private and state-owned health facilities.
While considerable effort is being made to galvanize the mitigation of HIV prevalence in the city of Lagos through the creation of agencies whose programs work to support civil organisations programs and advocate HIV prevention and care, there is a clear need for increasing efforts towards communication of screening centers and available care services in the city. Considering the population of the state — roughly 17.5 million people— a few hundred thousand people screened is relatively low. Also requiring more attention is the cost of these services: while the state can provide information on where to get services, protect the rights of people living with HIV, and advocate for care and prevention methods, most important is the cost of treatment. Subsidizing this cost will go a long way in providing care, as most people living with the virus cannot afford its care. It is understandable the state may not be able to afford free care for all, but incorporating favorable payment and affordable cost systems will help move the mission forward.
Grameen Bank is one of the most successful experiments in extending credit to Bangladesh’s poor. Many have used microfinance to pull themselves out of poverty. The beginnings of Grameen Bank can be traced back to 1976, when Professor Muhammad Yunus, the head of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong, launched a research project to examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide banking services for the rural poor. This research project grew, and as of 2011, Grameen Bank’s 23,144 employees serve 8.349 million borrowers (97 percent of which are women) in 81,379 villages, covering more than 97 percent of the total villages in Bangladesh. Read more or join the discussion.
IIn Dhaka, the poor mostly live near river banks, where they face the constant risk of floods and landslides. Because of the high cost of land, the urban poor can only afford to live near drainage congestions or on the edges of deep narrow valleys, areas which are prone to flooding because of the heavy rainfall, exacerbated by rapid climate change in the last few decades. In response to these difficult living conditions, and some of Dhaka’s environmental and connectivity issues, the Capital Development Authority of the Government of Bangladesh, Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (RAJUK) has planned a prodigious environmental sustainability project called Hatir Jheel. Read more or join the discussion.
In Bangladesh, more than a million people migrate from rural to urban areas each year. Migration in urban areas is in part influenced by ‘pull’ factors, like ease of access to the informal sector, the probability of a higher income, and the possibility of job opportunities in Ready Made Garment industries (RMGs). In these RMG industries, women make up almost 85 percent of the 2.4 million employees. However, almost 87 percent of female workers suffer from various health problems, like malnutrition, anemia, gynecological problems, urine infection, and other communicable diseases. Read more or join the discussion.
There are 25 million extreme poor in Bangladesh, a significant proportion of whom live in Dhaka city. However, there has been no comprehensive study of their individual needs. The narrative of the poor is often stereotyped and misrepresented; it is therefore vital that the voice of the poor be heard. The buzzword in poverty eradication must change from “intervention” to “cooperation.” Read more or join the discussion.
একটি বিদ্রূপাত্মক কিন্তু বিনোদনমূলক ভিডিও থেকে বুঝা যায় কিভাবে একজন আন্তর্জাতিক সাহায্য কর্মী এবং একটি আফ্রিকান গ্রামবাসীর কাছে দরিদ্রের সংজ্ঞা ভিন্ন হতে পারে। যদিও এই ভিডিওটি কিছুটা গতানুগতিক এবং ক্ষতিকারক, এটি পরিষ্কারভাবে দেখায় যে কখনও কখনও ঘটনা এবং পরিসংখ্যান ভুলে, দারিদ্র্য দূরীকরণ এবং উন্নয়ন আসল লক্ষ্য স্মরণ করা প্রয়োজন। বাংলাদেশে ২৫ লক্ষ চরম দরিদ্র আছে, যার একটি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ অংশ ঢাকা শহরে বাস করে। কিন্তু, তাদের স্বতন্ত্র চাহিদা সংক্রান্ত কোন ব্যপক গবেষণা এখনো হয় নি। দরিদ্র আখ্যান প্রায়ই গতানুগতিক ও ভুল ভাবে উপস্থাপিত এবং তাই, দারিদ্র দূরীকরণে দরিদ্রদের নিজস্ব গল্প শোনা অত্যন্ত গুরুত্বপূর্ণ। আর তাই, দারিদ্র্য দূরীকরণের জন্য চিন্তাধারা “হস্তক্ষেপ” থেকে “সহযোগিতা”য় পরিবর্তন করতে হবে। Read more or discuss.
Asha Rani, a 24-year-old mother of two living in the Vashantek slum, says that she used to have no idea about how to raise a healthy child. She did not know about immunization schedules, nutritional recomendations, or common pediatric illnesses that can be handled at home. This was her level of knowledge about health care before she came across the Aponjon service (“the close or dear one” in Bangla), a mobile health service in Bangladesh. Read more or join the discussion.
In August 2010, the Policy and Strategy for Public Private Partnership (PPP) was issued by the Government of Bangladesh to assist the development of public infrastructure and services: “The PPP program is part of the Government’s Vision 2021 goal to ensure a more rapid, inclusive growth trajectory, and to better meet the need for enhanced, high-quality public services in a fiscally sustainable manner.” In order to promote financial responsibility and sustainability of these public-private partnerships, the PPP unit was established under the Ministry of Finance. Thanks to these policies, public-private partnerships have indeed been effective in reducing the illiteracy rate in Bangladesh. Read more or join the discussion.
Water has always been a source of great challenge as well as distress for the resident of Dhaka, a city of 15 million people. Growing populations result in ground water depletion and increasing pollution, which leads to a lack of surface water usability. These factors make water issues acute for the DWASA, the main government water supplier. The intensity of the problem deepens when it comes to the slum and squatter residents, who have little or no DWASA water supply because they live in unstable and illegal settlements. In addition to a crisis of access, the quality of DWASA water (bad smell, microorganisms, presence of ammonia and arsenic, excessive chlorination) poses a great threat to people’s health. Read more or join the discussion.
Iniciemos com o tamanho da cidade. Embora Curitiba seja a nona cidade brasileira em termos de população, ela ainda é considerada pequena e compacta com uma densidade populacional de 4300 pessoas por quilometro quadrado. A expansão da cidade tem sido planejada com regulações do uso da terra e por meio de processos graduais de urbanização. Além de seu tamanho pequeno, também ajuda que a cidade tenha uma topografia relativamente plana e um clima moderado.
Outra ação importante para Curitiba tem sido a alta prioridade e o investimento nos espaços urbanos. Hoje a cidade mais de 450 praças públicas e mais de 400 pequenos jardins públicos para as pessoas caminhar, praticar esportes e socializar. Somado com um ótimo sistema de transporte público e a criação de ruas exclusivas para pedestres, a cidade é considerada amigável para os pedestres de todas as idades.
Two architects, P.K. Das from Mumbai and Paul Downton from Adelaide, have recently written about public space on The Nature of Cities. Both essays, from very different angles, are about the fundamental principles around which public spaces should be planned, organized, and motivated in human landscapes such as cities. If a single word suffices, that word must be “democratic”. Read more.
A lot of recent discussion around urban planning, resilience, and sustainable cities has included ideas about community engagement. How do we get the public more engaged in urban planning in ways that are effective – that honors good design, evidence-based science and community desires? Having decided that community engagement is a good idea doesn’t make it easy. My friend and colleague PK Das of Mumbai has been involved in a lot of public engagement around the expansion of open spaces, and he said something insightful. One the one hand, plopping a big plan with an elaborate drawing down in front of an audience is not exactly engagement – in fact, it can easily be a buzz kill. On the other hand, when I asked Das what for him was the biggest difficulty, he responded: “As a professional, it is resisting the temptation to try an control the proceedings; I need to relax and be a participant.” So there it is. How can we meld expert opinion (and science) and non-expert opinion (just as valid, but different) in a way that honors and includes both? Read more.
Many of us think of urban graffiti as a nuisance, as an illegality, as a challenge to authority. Exactly, especially the last one. And it is also a form a communication, sometimes the only form available to people who aren’t so well represented in the media. Alex Alonso wrote an interesting piece on urban graffiti and its typologies, and discussed how graffiti can provide insight into societal attitudes and perceptions. Graffiti includes political commentary, personal or ‘existential’ messages, gang-related territorial demarcation, simple ‘tags’, elegant ‘piecing’ where tags or names are elaborate, and larger works that, more obviously like art, that combine comment with an clear aesthetic. Read more.
Walkability and green spaces are not the same thing, but it feels as if they ought to be related somehow. This is because walkability in its most basic form is more than some version of “is possible to walk there”, but also “is possible and pleasant to walk there.” Or is it? One published definition of walkability, for example, is: “The extent to which the built environment is friendly to the presence of people living, shopping, visiting, enjoying or spending time in an area.” (from Walkability Scoping Paper, 2005). All the action is in the word “friendly”, and there’s a lot of unpacking to do. Read more.
I had the good fortune of walking along the Bandra waterfront in Mumbai last week with architect-activist P.K. Das, environmental journalist and neighborhood leader Darryl D’Monte, and Bandra Fort steward Arup Sarbadhikary. They were showing me some of the fruits of a long-standing effort to create more open space in Mumbai, where people can enjoy the outdoors and one of Mumbai’s assets: its coastline. Read more.
We don’t seem to live in an age of reading. But we do live in an age of communication. Ideas, images, manifestos, advertisements, loud TV, tweets and all manner of media bombard us all on a minute-to-minute basis. Put that together with one thing we know from evolving educational theory: each person learns and perceives messages a little differently, and diverse modes of delivering the same information are more likely to reach a wider range of people. What we really want is to get our messages out, to inform, to educate, to create dialog — with whatever media reach people. And this probably means delivering messages and ideas in diverse media: Tweets at 140 characters; Facebook at a few sentences; essays and blogs, books, radio, exhibits, and so on. Read more.
Keitaro Ito, in his recent essay called “Growing Places” at The Nature of Cities, poses the following question: where will children learn about nature? This is especially relevant in highly urbanized (and often fast growing) cities that are rapidly losing their green spaces, or perhaps never had much nature to begin with. This is the case in much of Japan, where Ito lives and works. There has been so much construction that much of the green space in cities has been lost. In such places, where will children learn about nature? Where will they play together in living spaces? How will they grow up to appreciate the critical role nature has in resilient, sustainable and livable cities? Read more.
Everyone thinks resilience is a good idea. The problem is figuring out what we actually mean when we say it. That is, how do we take urban resilience beyond the realm of metaphor and into the realm of everyday planning and decision-making — the stuff with which we can build cities? Read more.