6th day

The last day

Today was the pinnacle of any emotional experience out here. Nothing I have seen yet touched me as much as visiting a slum. And one point that really sticks in my mind is that it was a visit. I wasn't there for long, I was able to leave, and I didn't have to stay or live there. The people living there do not have that option. 

We were taken there by 'Future for children', who work with Street Child towards the same purpose, only they are based in Freetown. They broke down the process of dealing with children in slums. There are several slums in Freetown, the figure resting at about ten. There are hundreds upon hundreds of children and families living in just any one of these slums. Out of these hundreds of slums they have to narrow down the search to the truly homeless, destitute and desperate children that need the support of these NGOs because they have nothing and no one else to help. And the numbers for these run in their thousands. After that the social workers for the NGOs have to find out who is the most vulnerable out of these figures, as if you could, and about a handful of those can then be given the opportunity to turn things around. The reason being lack of funding, if you don't have a resource, you can't share it around. And even then that child may drop out of the programme to rejoin the strong bonds created with their friends, who are street children and who have become their family. Once reunited with a family member, if this is possible, relations and school attendance need to be monitored. So it's not just a case of throwing money at a problem. 

The rubbish strewn everywhere, making walls, river banks and floors around the slum was surprisingly lacking in smell. Structures were made out of corrugated metal and wooden frames, most places didn't have complete walls or roofs, the alleys ran in to each other, almost touching, like a hamster run. Women do washing in the rivers and the sea, amid children selling small items of food, like mangos from large bowls and trays balanced on their heads. We went to two schools in the slum, both small and run by dedicated teachers. Whether a school be in a slum or not the same fact remains: education has to be paid for; there are no state funded education or medical provisions. 

When the floods come in the rainy season, people are forced to sleep on top of their homes. Cholera and typhoid break out regularly and  the charity workers are unable to enter the flooded slums to help. Poverty on this scale is hard to quantify and where do you start when you try to do this? This is what the social workers deal with every day of their lives and how the poor in Sierra Leone live day in day out. There is no escaping unless a hand is given, a light to a new path in the darkness of Freetown's unlit streets. 

After seeing all of this I felt shell shocked and emotionally drained. the dangers of living this way seemed so much more real when I saw them happening only feet away instead of in a photograph or newspaper. I only hope that some of this seems sl to someone else. I came away from the slums wondering how you help such a scale of poverty. How also do you differentiate between one poor child in need of help, love and a future and the next one who is similarly in need? That alone makes me respect the effort put in to this mammoth task by the charities, social workers and volunteers involved at this and any level. That is why there w a marathon, why there is Street Child.

It takes so much work, dedication, passion, time and community input to 'solve' these kinds of problems. The only way Sierra Leone can have a happy future is if the kids, the future rulers, workers, parents, are given the opportunity to turn their lives around and that of the country. If they don't have the guidance of parents, guardians, friends, teachers or anyone how will they turn out?