World's slum populations set to surge as housing crisis bites

Thomson Reuters Foundation

NAIROBI – Beatrice Oriyo laughed out loud when asked if there was a playground where her three children could play near her home in Kibera, Nairobi's biggest informal settlement.

"There's nothing like that here," the 34-year-old Oriyo said by phone from the one-roomed corrugated iron home that she rents for 6,000 Kenyan Shillings ($43.18) a month.

"We don't even have our own toilet — we have to pay each time to use the public toilets. We bathe in the same room that is our kitchen, living room and bedroom. The idea of a playground here is like a joke," she said.

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