- LIVES IN A SLUM -

A Citizen’s Report; A result of a visit to Karimadom Colony, Trivandrum.

1. India is estimated to have one-third of the world’s poor.

2. A third of the world’s malnourished children live in India according to UNICEF,

3. According to the World Health Organization, it is estimated that 98,000 people in India die from diarrhoea each year. The lack of adequate sanitation, nutrition and safe water has significant negative health impacts

4. UNICEF report found that 93 million Indians live in urban slums, on pavements and construction sites.

This is the India that we have never seen (probably never tried to see). In this ‘World’s Largest Democratic Nation’, there are still millions who only dream of a home. Did you know India has more mobile phones than toilets? This shows our hustle towards fancy than for our basic needs. This must be all you have heard a thousand times before. Anyway, this is not what I really wanted to share with you.

What pressed me to write this is a visit, with my friend Vineeth, to the Karimadom Colony in the capital city of Kerala. Around 632 families live there congested (in that flood-prone area of 9 acres), and it being one of the garbage dumping sites of the whole district. Most families depend on public taps for water. The majority of houses do not have adequate sanitary facilities. Human waste is diverted to the open sewage collection pond, only inside the colony, resulting in unhygienic conditions. There is every chance for an epidemic in the place. We saw many people including children with unhealed wounds and other skin diseases. All these scenes were more than shocking. We saw: Human beings living in a worse condition, more pathetic, than worms.

We visited several people. One of them was a widow living in the ground floor of a 40+-year-old apartment, just at the verge of collapse. “I’m forced to send my child to the hostel, due to the worst living conditions in our colony. Our sole income is my widow pension,” says she. Their apartment consists of a single bedroom and a kitchen which is ‘scarcely’ a wall away from their latrine, without any water facilities.

Another was a family of 10 members living in a 4m x 6m single room apartment, which lacks even a door. Their kitchen (at the corner of the only room) and the latrine is separated by a dilapidated wooden door. Think about the unhygienic, miserable life of the young couple in that family who never gets privacy to meet even their sexual desires!

We visited a lot of people living in their barely inhabitable houses. They all suffer from various diseases due to unhygienic conditions. We had to leave the place with a heavy heart.

But all that is set to change now. The City Corporation is preparing to take up an integrated development project for the colony, including improvement of basic amenities, sanitation facilities and community services. Designed by the Centre of Science and Technology for Rural Development (COSTFORD), it seeks to ensure the livelihood security of the residents through a participatory approach.

Thanks and congratulations to the work of social activists and political leaders behind the new initiative.

What we learned from this experience is that “life is not as we dream to be”. We recognized the real images of Dark Life there in that colony. While we boast about Our House and Our Luxuries, think for once of the millions who only dream of a roof under the sun. Try to change Our Attitude towards Our Fellow Beings. At least we must be aware of the human beings in our surroundings. Do not hesitate to offer a helping hand to those who are in need of one.

With all respects, I add that I am in no need of your good ‘likes’; I only demand a helping hand to the needy.