"Let’s not forget the urban slum dwellers"

Author(s)
Towaye, P.
Publication language
English
Date published
04 Feb 2013
Type
Articles
Keywords
Disasters, Epidemics & pandemics, Urban
Countries
Liberia
Organisations
ActionAid

West Point is home to about 75,000 people all cramped into a tiny space, on an area that juts out towards the sea. For the majority, the main means of survival comes from the little fishing, plus petty trading.

Any urban community has issues, but for this one they are more intense and more neglected at the same time. We’re talking extreme poverty: very low access to water and basically no toilets; just one health clinic and no secondary schools (just one public primary school catering for about 500 children); and essentially no accessible justice even though there are very high levels of criminality.