Informal settlement trip

Sorry for the deletions, but we are trying to figure out how much info is acceptable to post publicly.

Ran out of time and bandwith...but pics and edits to clarify to come soon!

Trip to an informal settlement north of Windhoek

Hi guys, just a quick warning that there are a couple really disgusting pics below, so if you are squeamish don’t scroll down.

My work in Namibia is focused on creating a human right to water. This means guaranteeing a certain amount of readily accessible potable water per person per day. Last year the South African courts determined that every person needs at least 50 liters of water per day (25 for personal consumption and 25 for sanitation). For comparison, those of us in developed countries use several hundred liters per day. The right to water does not mean that the government cannot charge for water, but that it cannot turn water off for those too poor to pay. We went into out trip to informal settlements believing that we could focus on this basic access to water question, but we were presented with a community with numerous water, sanitation and health problems.

We traveled to the informal settlements in the north with the Legal Assistance Center, the only organization in Namibia that does public interest law. Community members sent a desperate letter saying that the village council had been completely unresponsive to complaints for the past 10 years. Our first stop was a sanitation facility, which contained 8 toilets and 4 showers meant for several hundred residents. The village council routinely shut off water to the facility, so the toilets would back up. Once the toilets became too fowl to use, people would go in whatever clean spot was available, including the floors and showers. Once the facility as a whole became too disgusting to use, people would go to “the bush.” The bush is private property where the owner threatens to shoot trespassers (no one likes people using their property as a bathroom). Additionally, a person died in the bush from a black mamba snake bite, and women fear being assaulted by men in the dark. When it rains, the feces from the bush run through the settlement and through homes. Also disturbing was seeing children without shoes, meaning they were walking through disgusting facilities or the bush barefoot. This situation was repeated at all 4 informal settlements we visited.

There were several other problems we witnessed. Sewage tanks next to the facilities were overflowing, old sewage treatment ponds were simply abandoned and now leaking next to the settlements, rubbish remained in piles next to shacks for years before removed even though residents paid for rubbish removal, the medical clinic refused patients that could not pay, a possible forced resettlement plan that would move mine workers to a settlement and the settlement next to the sewage pond, and the list goes on. One of those problems was the pre paid water point system, which is the problem we initially believed we would be working on. Instead of providing individual piping, the government provides single faucets every few hundred yards. People must credit a card in the city (kilometers away) and put it into the machine to access water. The water points are unreliable, and must service hundreds of people so residents line up for their turn in the morning. Those too poor to pay have no recourse, and this system was struck down in the South African case. While pre-paid water points are a problem, it quickly became obvious that they are just one of many pressing concerns.

I do not want to disclose too much case information, but we are in the process of determining who is responsible for providing services to these informal settlements, why they failed, and who has the obligation to improve the situation.

Sorry for the depressing post, but I have a mini vacation to the enormous and beautiful dunes of Sossusvlei this weekend so I should have some good pics soon!