There are roughly one billion people, or 33% of the world's population, who remain invisible to their fellowmen. They are ignored, dismissed, or denied acknowledgment and largely discriminated against because of the squalor within their midst or the sub-human conditions of their existence. These are human beings who inhabit shantytowns or informal settlements, who struggle to eke out a life in unforgiving locations under unsympathetic surroundings; because of an unforgivable crime of being born in destitution. 
About 70 million of the world's poorest human beings flock to cities annually, where in 20 years, their number could reach 2 billion. They seek opportunities, but face the constant threat of eviction, being squeezed out by industrial development, or merely bulldozed over because they are an urban blight that the non-poor refuse to see. At best, they are walled in and practically buried within the perimeter to remain out of sight. Some shantytowns have existed for 100 years and almost all have no clean water sources, no electricity, and no sanitation; yet they get little or no support because rural poverty has long been the image of deprivation. But urban poverty can be just as debasing, dehumanizing and life threatening.
Outsiders tend to view slums as breeding grounds of criminality, or recruitment areas for terrorists, but given that they are disdained, unaccepted and given up for dead; raises their predisposition to desperation and blind obedience to the hand that feeds them. But a new mindset is evolving that reverses the concept, that looks at slums in cities not as problems but solutions against global poverty. For within these communities are human beings who constantly strive to lift themselves out of impoverishment with undiminished tenacity and unbreakable will to survive. Amidst this depressing area of hopelessness are hardworking people with skills, trades and some education, who seek incomes from the informal economy that
also benefits the workers in formal economies. The concept also sees this migration to impact on the settlers by way of lower birth rates where the world's population could be helped to level off.
This new way of thinking about informal settlements should permeate the rigid minds of governments and funding agencies. The treatment of poor people as undesirable statistics, which results in denial of basic infrastructure, property rights, and basic rights as a human being is anathema to real development. Development is for people, marginalized and deprived by policies that favor the influential, the rich
and the powerful. Commercial and industrial development can continue but not to exclude the poor, but to integrate the poor into mainstream society. The way forward is not to disengage them from their temporary location, but to engage with them - to embrace those who reside in these communities, and sincerely understand how they live their lives.
Sadly, even this new mindset will perhaps be dismissed as worthless, for the minds of the non-poor may have been irreversibly molded by social discrimination. To this end, the solution for salvation will not come to pass. And, the absence of assistance for the many who are poor will one day endanger the lives of the few who are rich.
Haaarrrrwwwwwk...Twoooooooph...Ting!
About 70 million of the world's poorest human beings flock to cities annually, where in 20 years, their number could reach 2 billion. They seek opportunities, but face the constant threat of eviction, being squeezed out by industrial development, or merely bulldozed over because they are an urban blight that the non-poor refuse to see. At best, they are walled in and practically buried within the perimeter to remain out of sight. Some shantytowns have existed for 100 years and almost all have no clean water sources, no electricity, and no sanitation; yet they get little or no support because rural poverty has long been the image of deprivation. But urban poverty can be just as debasing, dehumanizing and life threatening.
Outsiders tend to view slums as breeding grounds of criminality, or recruitment areas for terrorists, but given that they are disdained, unaccepted and given up for dead; raises their predisposition to desperation and blind obedience to the hand that feeds them. But a new mindset is evolving that reverses the concept, that looks at slums in cities not as problems but solutions against global poverty. For within these communities are human beings who constantly strive to lift themselves out of impoverishment with undiminished tenacity and unbreakable will to survive. Amidst this depressing area of hopelessness are hardworking people with skills, trades and some education, who seek incomes from the informal economy that
also benefits the workers in formal economies. The concept also sees this migration to impact on the settlers by way of lower birth rates where the world's population could be helped to level off.This new way of thinking about informal settlements should permeate the rigid minds of governments and funding agencies. The treatment of poor people as undesirable statistics, which results in denial of basic infrastructure, property rights, and basic rights as a human being is anathema to real development. Development is for people, marginalized and deprived by policies that favor the influential, the rich
and the powerful. Commercial and industrial development can continue but not to exclude the poor, but to integrate the poor into mainstream society. The way forward is not to disengage them from their temporary location, but to engage with them - to embrace those who reside in these communities, and sincerely understand how they live their lives.
Sadly, even this new mindset will perhaps be dismissed as worthless, for the minds of the non-poor may have been irreversibly molded by social discrimination. To this end, the solution for salvation will not come to pass. And, the absence of assistance for the many who are poor will one day endanger the lives of the few who are rich.
Haaarrrrwwwwwk...Twoooooooph...Ting!
