The challenging circumstances of slums and informal settlements have direct relationship to the health conditions of poor urban and rural populations. The poverty conditions of the population, underpinned by traditional stereotyping are in many ways contributing to the appalling health situation of the residents, especially for women, youth, children and people with disabilities. As a result of this situation, prevalent health-related problems include SGBV, water-borne disease outbreaks, which are compounded by lack of or limited access to relevant facilities to address these problems. This is to revitalize our determination to take our settlements “from risk to resilience” through “building back better” approaches and methodologies.
- Priority 1: Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) – We will work with communities to organize community-based disaster management committees (CDMCs) and establish networks of these CDMCs with an integrated leadership anchored within our structure that provides direction of this process, building stronger relations with relevant MDAs and NGOs. These CDMCs will champion various initiatives to progressively mitigate humaninduced hazards and disasters, and reduce the effects of climate change and restore biodiversity. This is to ensure sustainable livelihoods and enhance community health and environmental resilience.
- Priority 2: Public health – We will work in collaboration with research institutes orcentres to identify the fundamental issues that continue to hamstring the availability and accessibility of these facilities. The results generated from these actions will in turn inform initiatives that would enhance public health accountability for improved availability and accessibility of health facilities and services. We will drive this by initiating new or strengthening existing community health committees (CHCs) which will be anchored within our leadership structure to carry out public health education and monitor government-funded public health services to enhance accountability and improve on public service provision and management.
- Priority 3: WASH – We will work with local authorities to enforce and monitor the implementation of FCC by-laws to ensure good sanitation and hygiene practices in the communities. We will also seek and leverage donor and government funding to scale up the provision of WASH facilities through community-led precedent-setting and self-funded demonstration projects. In order to optimize community potentials, we will organise innovation ‘challenge’ competitions to develop and scale up creative and innovative pro-poor and affordable models that would address community WASH challenges to ensure increased availability and accessibility.
- Priority 4: Women’s empowerment – We will strengthen FEDURP women’s wing, which in turn can strengthen the existing REFLECT circles through which they can engage communities and stakeholders to address issues of SGBV. These REFLECT circles will continue to provide peer support systems, especially for victims through which they can access referral and other support services including micro-finance for financial and livelihood sustainability which in turn stimulates the dignity and confidence to speak out and share their experiences. This is to minimize the prevalence of SGBV in informal and slum settlements which also accounts for the disempowerment of women, as it reinforces traditional stereotypes that keep women in situation of poverty and vulnerability.