A Visit To Slum Area Project

[Octavis Uberstine]

Itook an African slum Soweto tour during a long-ago visit to South Africa, to see a place that overflowed with meaning. In 1976, during the Soweto Uprising in which unarmed students were stormed and killed by police for refusing to study in Afrikaans, I was a university student in Political Science, engulfed (at a distance) in liberation movements and revolutions. Soweto was part of that, as well as a major chapter in the bigger South African story of apartheid and discrimination.

Years later as a journalist, I was escorted through some of the most crowded favelas in Rio by a young community nurse who worked with drug addicts and knew everyone. He was respected and we were stopped on every corner for a bit of a chat.

The afternoon I spent in Rocinha gave me a slightly better understanding of the poverty that fuels much of the addiction and crime, something I certainly would not have learned from the back of a bus.

So is slum tourism ethically acceptable or is it exploitative? What are the advantages and disadvantages of slum tourism? Do our tourist dollars actually help these communities or are we simply paying for a peek into lives we have no intention of ever experiencing for more than a few minutes? What are the impacts of slum development?

UN-HABITAT defines a slum household as a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following:

1. Durable housing of a permanent nature that protects against extreme climate conditions.

2. Sufficient living space which means not more than three people sharing the same room.

3. Easy access to safe water in sufficient amounts at an affordable price.

4. Access to adequate sanitation in the form of a private or public toilet shared by a reasonable number of people.

5. Security of tenure that prevents forced evictions.

So are there slum tourism advantages? There may be a flip side. Slum tourism has supporters, many of whom believe tourism will ultimately benefit the favela or the township and help improve the lives of people who live there.

But you have the ethical obligation to find out: what are the disadvantages of slum tourism in the area you are visiting? But by asking the right questions, you are showing you care, and are forcing tour operators to tackle these issues.

While some feel much good can come from properly thought-out slum tours, others believe slum tourism has done more harm than good, with insensitive itineraries pulled together purely for gain.

What I like about the tours is the contact I get from foreigns who come here. This interaction helps me to educate people about my life here in the favela. When foreigners come here I feel like my home or favela has value and is worth to be seen. The Brazilian government mostly ignores us and helps us very little. We want our voice to be heard. I want to feel that somebody on the outside cares about us and recognizes that we exist. Up until about a few years ago favelas did not exist on maps. Why was this?

We live here, and should be making the tours here. I have heard outsider tour companies exaggerate things or tell outright lies about my favela. They do this because they do not know and do not live here. I am here to share a social experience, not provide some adrenalin tour.

The glamorization of violence is another thing that we do not like here. It is as if these companies are trying to capitalize on some kind of excitement. Favelas are not war zones, and people need understand that real, honest hardworking people live there, we just make less money.

There are tour companies here who use the community to make money but they give very little or nothing back to the community. This is not right. They should contribute something for the betterment of the favela. There are plenty of social projects here that could use help.

I am not ashamed to live in the favela and people should not feel shame to come and visit. All we ask is please do not take photos of us like we are animals, and do not have fear if we say hello to you on the street.

If we want to stop or reduce poverty, we need to stop pretending it does not exist. I call it socially responsible tourism. If you chose to tour this type of community, try to give something back, however big or small. I work with an art school and encourage people to bring art supplies, not money.

Slums, favelas and shanties are where 1/3 of the population live in all major cities, serving the needs of mostly the rich. Visiting these places may increase your knowledge and awareness at a much deeper level than visiting a museum or art exhibition. Ignoring poverty is not going to make it go away and those who have more, should not feel guilt. Unfortunately, this world will always have this unbalance of wealth. Sad but true.

Read more about Zezinho on his blog, Life in Rocinha or book a favela walking tour.

Being white is something I had always wished for. Unfortunately, I soon realized that being viewed as white in Kibera meant being considered as a potential source of money. Nothing more, nothing less. I was just a foreigner in Kibera slum.

It was a sad statement, but I understand her point. Every day as I walked to the slum, I saw groups of men standing on the street doing nothing while women were doing cleaning jobs for rich people to get some shillings to feed their children. Many women in Kibera are single moms. If visitors happen to be in the slum at night, they will see those women get up at 3 am, cook something for their children and then start walking to the rich area to work as cleaners. It takes them 1 or 2 hours to walk, and they have to make sure that they arrive at 6 or 7 am before the rich people leave for work. To me, those women are strong enough, independent enough, and know well enough how to control their own lives. Unfortunately, books and school tell us that women are vulnerable, and therefore, we should empower them. That is why most NGOs come and try to organize workshops to empower women. But in Kibera, I believe NGOs should be focusing more on creating employment opportunities for men.

Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) quarterly research showed slightly more than three-quarters of manufacturers surveyed did not plan to hire new staff in the next six months. Some 43 percent of the firms said they plan to retain their existing workforce, while 33 percent are looking at trimming staff to protect profit margins [11].

Abzeid, my local guide, took me to visit a craft shop where people turned animal bones into necklaces and jewelry. The business is considered innovative by many locals since it helps turn waste into something useful. The problem is that since everything is done by hand, it is a long process for the workers to get to the final products. I bought a keychain to support them.

Attracting business for the products here is a challenge. The Toi market is huge and is located in the heart of Kibera. It is supposed to create businesses and jobs for people in the slum. But after visiting it for a few times, I realized that the majority of the customers are slum residents. Rich people are afraid of the slum. It is not considered safe and clean. And since all the products in the Toi market are second hand (even socks and underwear) and imported from China, it only attracts the poor who do not have money. The money just goes around the poor circle. A chapati which is sold for $1 or $2 in other areas is only 10 cents in Kibera because it is for the poor. As a result, it is hard for Kibera residents to make good profits since their products barely reach the middle and upper-income people as well as the markets outside of Kibera.

I was only in Kibera for about six weeks, which is definitely not enough time to fully understand all of the factors contributing to poverty there. I am grateful that my Rotary fellowship is giving me the opportunity to learn how to do development in a more thoughtful way.

These were the typical reactions my partner and I got when we told others, that we wanted to visit the worst slums in Manila. After almost two years of seeing tropical beaches in Palawan, Instagram-worthy islands and small Filipino villages, we wanted to see the other side of the Philippines. The dark side. The side you only hear about, but never see for yourself. The worst slums of the Philippines.

When we set out to explore this neighborhood, we had no idea what to expect. People warned us from all sides not to visit Happyland in Manila, so we were pretty excited when a local offered to show us around. We met him at a restaurant in Baguio, and he told us that he was doing volunteer work in Tondo to educate couples about contraception.

A few days later, we met up with him in Metro Manila and headed north, where the slums of Manila are located. However, it quickly became clear that our new friend had never been to Happyland himself and only knew his way around the edges of the slums in Tondo. When he realized that we actually wanted to go all the way into the deepest slums of Manila, he decided to turn around. So, we continued the journey alone.

Walking through this district brought out mixed feelings in me. This is probably why it took me so long to write this article. Somehow, I just never found the right words to describe my experience in the slums of Manila. Looking back and thinking about the problems the families and children have to face every day, I feel helpless and frustrated.

Families lack money to put food on the table for their kids, so children have to go out and work themselves. Going to school and getting a proper education is not on the priority list. This leads to children being stuck in the slums, not knowing how life outside the poorest districts in Manila looks like. Young couples lack access to education about contraception, which leads to early parenthood, and the vicious cycle seems to repeat itself all over again.

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