Posted on 5 November, 2011

The Kamrangirchar peninsula was formerly used as a dumping ground for Dhaka’s trash. Over the past several decades, however, more and more people began to live in the area. Covering just three square kilometers, the area is now home to 400,000...

The Kamrangirchar peninsula was formerly used as a dumping ground for Dhaka’s trash. Over the past several decades, however, more and more people began to live in the area. Covering just three square kilometers, the area is now home to 400,000 people- most of who have migrated from other parts of Bangladesh.

Many are suffering from diarrhoeal diseases and skin rashes, often as a direct result of the unhygienic living conditions in this heavily polluted area. Toxic waste from Dhaka’s industries is released into the Buriganga river, where many people from Kamrangirchar bathe and wash their clothes. Families often live in cramped living conditions, with up to ten people sharing a room. Apart from MSF’s clinics, there are no health structures in Kamrangirchar that provide free medical care.

Urban Survivors is a multimedia project by Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in collaboration with the NOOR photo agency and Darjeeling Productions, highlighting the critical humanitarian and medical needs that exist in slums the world over.

Photo: © Stanley Greene/Noor

If you like what you’ve been seeing here and get the chance, nominate MSF as a Must-Follow Non-Profit on Social Media in Mashable’s 5th Annual Mashable Awards.

Five kilometres southwest of downtown Nairobi, the sprawling Kibera slum is a sea of mud and corrugated iron shacks with small, narrow rooms that house entire families. Kibera is severely overcrowded and suffers from a grave and dangerous lack of...

Five kilometres southwest of downtown Nairobi, the sprawling Kibera slum is a sea of mud and corrugated iron shacks with small, narrow rooms that house entire families.

Kibera is severely overcrowded and suffers from a grave and dangerous lack of sanitation. Most houses do not have toilets, so people must seek out public ones during the day. At night, however, these are unsafe or unreachable, forcing people to defecate in bags that they then throw outside. The high population density, the deplorable hygiene, and lack of clean water and sanitation significantly increase the risk of diseases spreading in the slum.

The people of Kibera have very limited access to free or affordable health care. The government has historically considered it an “informal settlement,” which renders slum residents “invisible” to the authorities and the rest of the society. As a result, there has been no government-sponsored development inside the slum- no provision of public water, sanitation, education, infrastructure or health care.

Urban Survivors is a multimedia project by Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in collaboration with the NOOR photo agency and Darjeeling Productions, highlighting the critical humanitarian and medical needs that exist in slums the world over.

Photo: © Francesco Zizola/Noor