Being woken up by the morning breeze through the tiny opening presumed to be the window on the tin or paper house has been the daily routine for most of the people living in the slums. The lives of these people have been characterized by various challenges that are day to day hassles.
Poor sanitation, lack of clean and safe water for drinking, lack of food, poor shelters and living below a dollar a day makes it hard for them to improve their living standards. Regardless of all of this, the health state of the people in slums is likely to deteriorate as we approach a more modern and civilized nation in the future.
The healthiness and how hygienic an environment should be is shown by ways in which waste disposal have been managed, the setting up of water infrastructure, and self initiatives of the people living in an area.
On contrary, in korogocho, Mukuru kwa Njenga ,Kariobangi, Mathare, Kibera among other slums in Kenya, the notion and practices are different. Firstly, a people’s initiative to take responsibility of their own health is not there and if there is a motive, they have to cry for help. This is a notion that lags a nation behind and people need to know that it’s their lives and the little money they use for hospital bills should be reverted to school fees and other developmental activities.
Secondly, pollution is a human activity. Just disposing off any waste material; be it chemicals polythene products, and even food products in any way without proper management can course diseases spread especially the causative agents of such diseases. These practices should stop. They can only happen from own initiative, company’s/industry strategic plans for proper disposals; especially those directing the waste to the rivers. Re-cycling ought to be revisited.
Thirdly, to the local authorities and the governments, the engineers that lay down water pipes or the sanitation companies that also put up man holes and septic tanks near the water infrastructures. This is not right! Why are these problems happening in slums? Responsibility still counts.
In our own environment starting from our houses, to our compounds and to the larger community, let’s make it a self initiative agenda to safeguard our lives at stake in terms of sanitation, hygiene and safe drinking water.
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