VARIOUS: SPECIAL REPORT: UNITED NATIONS WORLD HABITAT DAY FOCUSSES ATTENTION ON THE PLIGHT OF THE WORLD'S HOMELESS AND BADLY HOUSED.

Record ID: 336926

  • Title: VARIOUS: SPECIAL REPORT: UNITED NATIONS WORLD HABITAT DAY FOCUSSES ATTENTION ON THE PLIGHT OF THE WORLD'S HOMELESS AND BADLY HOUSED.
  • Date: 1st October 1986
  • Summary: 1. GV PAN Shanty town. TRAVELLING SHOT Shacks (3 shots) 0.32 2. GVs & SVs Tent village with children playing outside tents (2 shots) 0.41 3. GVs & SVs People walking in shanty town. Children covered in flies. Child crying. Child in door-way. Child and adult (7 shots) 1.04 4. GVs & SVs Open sewer. Children in slum. Children scavaging on rubbish dump (5 shots) 1.25 5.
  • Embargoed: 16th October 1986 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3SQK41VQGKMLASEDLCKJD98TQ
  • Story Text: VARIOUS LOCATIONS

    One-quarter of the world's population -- over one billion people -- is without adequate housing; one hundred million people are homeless eating and sleeping in the streets of the world's cities. The United Nations (UN) General Assembly has designated October 6 as World HABITAT Day to draw attention to the housing situation of human beings everywhere. The first Monday of October of each year will be known as World Habitat Day and the UN has also designated 1987 as the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless (IYSH). Over the last 30 years the population of towns and cities has been growing by four per cent a year. Behind that bald statistic lurks the nightmare reality of teeming slums and shanty towns often without basic necessities like water and sewage where disease and death are commonplace. The UN stresses the urgency of the problem -- in the year 2,000 unless there is a major change, almost two billion people will be living in shanty towns and slums.

    SYNOPSIS: For an estimated one thousand million people world-wide home is a place like this -- a makeshift shanty often lacking such basics as sanitation and garbage disposal.

    The problem is particularly acute in the third world as people flock from the countryside to the towns in search of employment and riches.

    They usually find neither. Instead, they find death and disease. Serious illnesses and fatal accidents are commonplace. A total of 50,000 people a day die in the slums many of them young children.

    In today's swelling Third World cities the flood of new arrivals far outstrips the supply of jobs. Experts predict that if present trends continue sweeping epidemics, widespread starvation and angry revolutions will be the norm.

    Safe and reliable water supplies are a priority. HABITAT lists this with sanitation and garbage disposal as a basic requirement.

    The agency insists that it's not only housing but services like public transport and medical care for all.

    Schools and self-help are a key element in the UN programme. For example teenage girls with just a basic primary education, have set up schools in their own backyards to pass on the rudiments to the children--it's not much but it is a start that works.

    HABITAT says the laws that govern city living are also in need of change to protect the innocent from the unscrupulous. HABITAT stresses the idea of self-help as being all-important. The UN wants to involve everyone; that way they believe it may be possible to defy the trend and see everyone adequately housed by the year 2,000.

    The UN is urging Governments and aid agencies to consult with the local slum and shanty dwellers about rebuilding -- using local skills and materials. As the Executive Director of Habitat, Dr Arcot Ramachandran explained the scheme means more than just the basics.

    <strong>Source: REUTERS - MOHAMED AMIN</strong>
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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