On the edge of paradise

16 May 2008

Kroo Bay was once a popular fishing village. Situated on the edge of the Atlantic ocean in Freetown, the community of Kroo Bay looks out on the vast expanse of clear blue water. An idyllic location, you might think. But the reality is that people in Kroo Bay are possibly the unluckiest in the world. Kroo Bay is one of the worst slums in Sierra Leone, where 5,500 people fight for space amongst its squalid passageways.

The first thing I noticed walking into the slum is the smell. The stench is of raw sewage, pigs and rotten food and rubbish. Kroo Bay’s residents are living on top of a rubbish tip. Two rivers flow through the slum, bringing with them the rubbish which is thrown in up river. The river also doubles as a public lavatory. There is no sewage system in Kroo Bay and the only other sanitary facilities are two public lavatories, which residents are charged to use.

Kroo Bay’s Health Centre

We walk into the health centre where we are met by Adama, the Community Health Officer. Adama is running a health centre with very few staff and no resources. The health centre consists of 5 rooms to serve the community’s 5,500 residents. The maternity ward is a room with two beds, one of which can’t be used as it’s broken. I ask Adama if mothers in labour can be given any drugs. No, there are none. “What if someone needs a caesarean?” “They would have to be sent to a hospital in Freetown,” she says.

It becomes apparent that the government Health Department does not supply any drugs, except for anti-retrovirals for HIV positive patients. All other medication has to be paid for by patients. But how can people afford it? I wonder. Few people in Kroo Bay are employed; some make money from fishing or scavenging. Adama says that she and the nurses often end up paying for medication out of their own salary. “I can’t turn people away, I have to treat them.” During our visit, they had run out of medication and the only drugs available were for treating diarrhoea.

The rainy season starts in Kroo Bay this month. For the next six months, the river continually floods and the filthy water washes into people’s homes. Adama says that many children are lost to pneumonia during these months. “There’s no way for them to get dry.” Children are dying from cholera, malnutrition and malaria. And the sense of hopelessness is evident in Adama eyes. “Why can’t the government at least provide us with the medicines we need”? she asks.

Intervention of the YMCA

With help from Y Care International, the YMCA of Sierra Leone is working to improve life in Kroo Bay.

The building of a community centre is close to completion. All the construction workers who have worked on the site are from Kroo Bay. They told me that this is the only work they have been able to get. Some of them had been fishermen before but their boat was lost and they don’t have any money to replace it. “The community centre is a good starting point. We want to see it open as right now there’s nowhere for people to go,” they tell me.

The centre includes a hall for community gatherings, an internet café and a much needed toilet block. There is also a day care centre, which will be used to take care of the children of young people who will be attending vocational training courses run by the YMCA. Over the next 3 years, the YMCA will provide training for 1,200 young people from both Kroo Bay, and another slum on the other side of Freetown. During my visit, the first 200 people had been selected to start their training in June. Everywhere we went, people wanted to know if their name was on the list. The training includes construction, motor mechanics, tailoring and hairdressing. “We want to improve the lives of young people and their families. This will give them a chance – a way out of the slum,” says Gibril Turay, the YMCA’s Community Development Worker.

All of the projects are being overseen by a steering committee made up of members of the community. They will have their own community development fund and they plan to use it to bring clean drinking water to Kroo Bay, and provide sanitary and drainage facilities.

Gibril tells me that the YMCA is also providing advocacy skills training, so people can lobby for their own needs. “It’s not just a case of NGOs coming in and trying to improve the conditions here, the government has a responsibility to change things”.

The YMCA is clear in its belief that everyone has a role to play in saving Kroo Bay. As the Slum Development Project Manager, Francis Reffell explains: “I want to see the community more proactive in making the government accountable to responding to the needs of the community. The problems here are huge, we don’t have the resources to do everything. The community need to demand their rights.” 

And there is a lot to do. Walking across the football field – the only place where kids can play – the rain starts pelting down. The field is flooded in minutes. It’s just a glimpse of what the next few months will be like here. And every year is the same. How many more years can Kroo Bay survive like this?

By Gemma Abbs, Communications Manager