Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – Transforming Slums: Will We Hear the Cries of One Billion People Before It Is Too Late?
By Ashley Barker
September 2006
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Humanity has existed for thousands of years, yet we are just now beginning to experience a new kind of community—the slum community. The fact that one million people live huddled under corrugated-tin sheets in a ditch outside of Nairobi, Kenya, is something new to the human experience. Today’s slums collectively hold one billion of the earth’s people. The slums are marked by crowded conditions, makeshift housing and dubious sanitation. Overwhelming unemployment rates and desperate poverty bring despair. Despair is the most destructive force among the urban poor and is essentially a spiritual issue. When slum dwellers lose all sense of hope, they stop caring about what happens to themselves, their families and the people around them. Despair can rule the slums.
Demonstrating Christ’s Love and Power
Slum communities are on the rise at an alarming rate. It is estimated that every day there are fifty thousand new urban slum dwellers. The presence of Jesus is among these masses and hears the cries of each of the lost, poor and broken ones. He is pleading with the whole body, the Church, to respond to this spiritual, social and environmental reality as he would.
Most governments, churches and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are at a loss to know what to do with slum communities. This provides a unique arena to demonstrate the transformative power of Christ for whole communities. Will we have the courage to follow Jesus into the heart of these communities?
Today’s slums collectively hold one billion of the earth’s people. The slums are marked by crowded conditions, makeshift housing and dubious sanitation.
To fail to follow Jesus into the slums, to attempt to ignore or lock out two billion slum dwellers, will put everyone on the planet at risk. The powers of radical evil are exploiting the most vulnerable who are gathered in slums and can create, for example, hot houses to nurture radical terrorism. However, this volatile environment can also provide opportunities for radical discipleship with Christ. Will the whole Church do whatever it takes to “seek the shalom of the city” in thoughtful, prayerful and committed ways? Or will the world suffer the consequences of ignoring the “least of these brothers and sisters” of God?
Understanding Slum Communities
Urban slums go by many names, according to their context. In Thailand, they are called chim choms, in Brazil they are favelas and in Argentina they are called villa iseries. What they have in common is that they are catch-basins for the poor and vulnerable of a city and nation. The rural poor, AIDS orphans, labourers and refugees pour into these makeshift towns and then they become home. Often mainstream people fearful of a community’s reputation try to hide slums away or even destroy them altogether as they reveal a reality of life few want to acknowledge.
What are slum communities? Put simply, they are communities built the wrong way around. In a regular neighbourhood a local government recognizes land as fit for housing, provides deeds and develops utilities such as sewers, water and electricity. Builders draw up building plans. Eventually foundations for homes are laid and construction starts. Once the house is completed and utilities connected, the family who buys or rents the house is able to move in their belongings and have the chance to make a home.
Slum communities begin when people move onto vacant, often undeeded, land first and put whatever belongings they have on it. Then they build whatever shelter they can quickly get over their heads. Later—if at all—utilities may be developed, and shelter is improved. Rarely are deeds granted. Over time more shanty houses pop up and more layers of infrastructure are added “over the top.”
Technically speaking, the United Nations defines a slum household as one that lacks any of the following:
- Access to improved water or access to sufficient amount of water for family use, at an affordable price, available to household members without being subject to extreme effort
- Access to improved sanitation or access to an excreta disposal system, either in the form of a private toilet or a public toilet shared with a reasonable number of people
- Security of tenure or evidence of documentation to prove secure tenure status or de facto or perceived protection from evictions
- Durability of housing or permanent and adequate structure in a non-hazardous location
Ashley Barker lives with his wife and two children in Klong Toey, a slum of eighty thousand people in Bangkok, Thailand. They live in the midst of extreme poverty and their house consists of two rooms and is about the size of four double beds.