Shelter Issues

Between the years 1990 and 2001, the military takeovers and uprisings in Sierra Leone over the diamond mining issues led to the displacement of over half the population at the time. During these 10 years over 1 million people fled to neighbouring countries to take refuge from the civil war that was happening all around them.

Since the government and the conflicting parties declared peace in 2002, over 500,000 Sierra Leoneans have returned home. Sierra Leone hasn’t improved much since this historical day though, the poverty rate is still too high and the population have very low standards of living. In Sierra Leone you either live in handmade, dodgy houses out of sticks and mud or in old homes in the urban towns from before the civil war began.

Because the population in Sierra Leone is rising rapidly there is becoming a shortage of land for housing, many people have to leave the rural and urban areas and build on the steep hills surrounding the villages. Hills that 20 years ago were covered in trees are now full of houses and makeshift terraces. There are no real roads for people to travel on, and just last year 2 young children were killed by having a boulder fall on them whilst walking to school.

The Sierra Leoneans that are living on these hills say that it is a difficult life, that at night they are scared that rocks will fall through their roofs and kill them in their sleep. They complain that the government isn't giving them enough guidance, that there are limited building regulations and they don’t know where to build.