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Lima's hope for the future

Lima was born in one of Bangladesh’s biggest slums and has lived here her entire life.

In her 25 years, Lima has faced poor living conditions, overcrowding and lack of access to clean water and sanitation everyday.

“There are lots of problems in slum,” says Lima, “But we don’t know how to solve the issues and don’t have the training.”

Habitat has recently started working in the slum where Lima lives as part of our Building Urban Resiliency project which will focus on improving living conditions, water and sanitation and infrastructure.

Lima said that several organisations have come to help the community, but none have focused on the areas that are a priority to families in the slum.

“This is the first time I have seen an organisation come to us, the community, and have objectives to improve the condition of water and sanitation and awareness of people as well,” said Lima.

Lima joined a Habitat-facilitated water and sanitation committee and has been involved in vulnerability assessments of the slum to determine the risks and hazards present. Then, working with Habitat, the community will come up with ways to implement solutions.

“This is a good start for me to be part of something innovative,” said Lima. “On the committee I was given knowledge on how to find out the risks in our community. We are now more aware of the hazards and what we should do. ”

Lima has always been passionate about community health and education and wants more people to become aware of the importance of clean water and hygiene. She believes engaging the community and working together will open a “door of happiness.” Through this, she believes families will be healthier, safer, empowered and more resilient once the hazards in their community are identified and resolved.

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