Life in the Slums of Uganda.
Slums are simply heavily populated urban suburbs with substandard housing facilities and low standards of living. Based on the report from the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, 49% to 64% of the total urban population of Uganda live in slums giving a ratio of 1.58 million people to 2.1 million people as slum residents in Uganda.
The areas of Bwaise, Kivulu, Katwe, Kosovo, Katanga, Kasubi, Kisenyi, and many others are the major slums in Kampala city, in addition to others in various districts.
The increasing growth rate of slums in Uganda is majorly attributed to the high levels of rural-urban migration. Urban poverty, lack of urban planning and development control, and the complex urban land tenure system in Kampala and Uganda in general.
Life in the slums of Uganda is a heap of discomfort, confusion, disorganization, struggles, and sorrow. If we were all given chances to choose the lives we live. Certainly no one would choose to live in a slum unless that person has never been in one.
Mercilessly, without even eliminating the young children or women out, the slum life tortures everyone who bumps into its territories. Whether a man, woman, or child, they suffer the same conditions that the parents go through.
Life in the slums of Uganda
People in the slums of Uganda live an absolutely poor life, waking up in the morning with totally nothing to eat and even without hopes of getting any. Young children live half-naked, putting on only a shirt or a pair of shorts without clothes to dress. So the poor woman has to face her kid spending a day with an empty stomach or searching for the leftovers in rubbish pits; so saddening!
Unemployment is one major challenge that most people in the slums of Uganda face. Both the youths and the adults don’t have jobs, simply because they are not trusted just because of their slum origin. And others lack the capital to start up their own business.
Women in Uganda Slums
Women in the Ugandan slums have consistently faced the problem of rape and sexual harassment. Young girls and women are raped almost daily and nothing has been done to stop this. We are all giving a blind eye and deaf ear to the victimized girls in the slums of Uganda. Poor girls are innocently getting infected with AIDS and other STDs yet they don’t even have money for treatment. They are becoming young struggling single mothers with nothing to start with.
Violence is another struggle that you cannot miss in any slum in Kampala. The fact that the slum residents have already gone through a lot. The unemployment, absolute poverty, rape, and other dejected situations, they are just angry with the world. They feel the world has not been fair enough to them. So anything that tampers with them can immediately cause violence.
Also, suicide cases are rampant in the slums of Uganda. People here totally become hopeless, thinking that life can’t move on any further. With no one and nothing to look up to, they feel all alone in a world that rejected them and they end up killing themselves.
Drug abuse is becoming a culture in the slums of Kampala Uganda. One can say it’s a mandate for every grown-up youth to start taking drugs. Young boys of fourteen are now already drug addicts with no one guiding them on how to live developmental lives.
In addition, slums are breeding grounds for crimes. We can change them to cheerful places because even their inhabitants are all working towards better lives.
You can choose to volunteer in Uganda’s slums, come visit the residents of these congested urban settlements, engage yourself in the extension of piped water to these areas, or the construction of a school, or even just to spend some time with the children in the slums.
Still, you can donate to the men, women, and children, whether food, clothes, school fees, or school requirements, just choose any form and we transform the lives of the people living in the slums of Uganda.