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PO Box A524
Sydney South NSW 1235, Level 11, 227 Elizabeth Street Sydney NSW 2000

Telephone: 1800 812 164

© 2024 Opportunity International AustraliaABN 83 003 805 043

The Struggle of Slums

By Lucinda Needham

Throughout the developing world, cities are growing at unprecedented rates. Concentrations of large urban slums sit on the periphery of overcrowded cities and are often the result of poor urban planning and the failure to develop adequate urban spaces with infrastructure and sewerage systems to support the rising population.

‘Slum cities’ are said to be the largest growing human habitat in the world, where one third, or 860 million, of the world’s urban poor live in households deprived of basic shelter, clean drinking water, adequate sanitation and opportunities for employment. In India alone, an estimated 64 million residents, including up to 6 million children, live in urban slums.

For millions of people living in slums in developing countries, each and every day is a struggle to survive. For women, these struggles are even more acute. Mothers like Alfrea are often forced into precarious forms of informal employment, such as garbage picking, increasing the risk of respiratory illness, tetanus and intestinal infections.

In one of the poorest parts of Manila, the Payatas waste site is home to approximately 80,000 slum dwellers who survive by foraging through decomposing rubbish in the hope of finding items to use or resell. Alarmingly, it is not uncommon for usurious money lenders to prey on unemployed parents desperate to feed their family, sometimes charging between 100%-400% interest a day, creating a vicious cycle of indebtedness.

Extreme poverty is endemic across urban slums. Microfinance, however, addresses the intractable issues of poverty, by giving people a hand up to start their own small business, earn an income and break the poverty cycle.

A loan as small as $70 can help one mother start a small business, earn an income and leave poverty behind.

It’s incredible, isn’t it? After all, how much does $70 mean to you?

For Alfrea, it would mean she could start a proper business so she would no longer have to pick rubbish for a living to earn only a few dollars a day – or sometimes nothing at all.

Her children would no longer have to scavenge through landfill instead of attending school. They could eat regular meals and access medicine when they’re sick.

It would mean her family could dream of a brighter future with dignity and hope.

 

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