As we drove past the queues at the petrol station, I realised taking petrol for granted is another key thing in our homeland.
Met with the Local Housing corporation – a group who seem genuinely keen to effect low cost housing. As their leader put it though, all they do is meet as they have no land and are at the behest of the government leaders to get some, but then they have no resources so could not build if they had land. They will however daw up their plans for 2 and 3 bed houses and share them with us. They have a disused training facility that could make bricks and tiles, that could work so we shall see.
Then to YMCA. A great job they have done in establishing a federation of slum dwellers and aim to give them a voice – to speak to the poor. Sometimes you think it is hard here to know if anyone is listening. We all noted that whilst the slums look pretty much the same as 10 years ago, there were many stories of people who had exited and moved to a better life. So easy to look at the mass and despair yet lets look at the hearts of the few who really have been enabled to a better life.
To the European Union who have no money for infrastructure and won’t look again till 2020. They reinforced that they knew of no one looking to build homes for the poorest and there was no agenda for the slums in this country as the task is simply too big and cost too much. NGO’s and agencies often wan numbers to show their donors the number of lives impacted. Hello driven by what will sell to donors – where are we coming from a s a society?