About the community of Kampala:

Kampala - The slum situation

Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, is situated close to the middle of the country, covers an area of 195 square Kilometres (it is the country’s largest city), and is characterised by several steep, flat-topped hills and wide, shallow valleys. The city consists of five administrative divisions, Kawempe, Rubaga, Central, Makindye and Nakawa.

Slum growth
Kampala’s villages and slums developed partly as a result of rural to urban migration (41% of Uganda’s urban population lives in Kampala, giving it a population of 1.4 million, 54% of whom live in one- or two-roomed houses, known as muzigos. These are the latest figures we have and are debatable) and which was mainly caused by the regional imbalance of resources devoted to development, health care, housing, education and so on in the local municipalities and Kampala.

Kampala's five administrative divisions

Another 1 million people commute to the city for work everyday, though, according to the last Population and Housing Census, 39% of Kampala’s population lives in absolute poverty, and 43% of the population is unemployed.

In addition to the population growth from the above reasons, many of the slums inhabitants migrated from neighbouring countries that were/are engaged in civil war, ending up in Kampala with nothing whatsoever, what they did have in their country of origin having been destroyed in the war. Which is why, for example, you will find in a slum such as Kisenyi, people from Somalia, Rwanda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo. Note: A point worth bearing in mind is that whilst there may be the fear in the West of migrants, and would-be migrants, from Africa, most migration, economic or otherwise, occurs within the continent.

Basically, since the 1990s, the supply of low-cost housing has not kept pace with the city’s population growth, and so the spread of unplanned, informal settlements, i.e. slums, which boast a population density of over 14,000 people per square kilometer. The muzigos in the informal settlements typically lack adequate sanitation and drainage and many stand in wetlands that are prone to flooding

Current situation
The government has tried to improve conditions for the slums’ inhabitants, but not much has been achieved. However, in association with NGOs and CBOs, the government has made attempts at building better drainage systems, as well as extending healthcare to the villages to provide services such as AIDS awareness programmes, family-planning programmes, treatment for malaria, cholera and other such diseases prevalent in these neighbourhoods.

Evictions have occurred, and still occur, in the slums and villages, with little or no compensation for the displaced.

The mainstream population’s perceptions of the slums and villages are pretty negative, based on the poor physical infrastructure (homes without latrines, poorly-built houses, poor drainage systems, dirt), high unemployment and the belief that this is where criminals hide out and/or reside.

The inhabitants of the slums and villages don’t think these are particularly nice places to live in either, what with the congestion, poorly-built homes in flood-prone areas, lack of basic infrastructure, poor sanitation aiding the spread of waterborne diseases, and so on, but here they reside because it’s what they can afford. As would be expected, many hope for a better future. To this end, some parents have failed to get their children educate to Secondary and university-level, but much of this appears to have been in vain due to some circumstances people are facing as ( widows and orphans which some of them live with their grand parents )

So, many hope, but many also have completely given up hoping.

We believe that "A challenge is presented, however, by the newcomers always arriving in the community. "New people bring hope for our community,"