Creating space for young people in urban slums of Sierra Leone: Survey Baseline Report

PROJECT BACKGROUND Sierra Leone is located in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa’s west coast. It’s 7.6 million people rank amongst the poorest in the world, with more than half living on less than US$1.90 per day, and 75 per cent of the urban population living in informal settlement (slum) areas as of 2014. Sierra Leone’s population is dominated by youth: after the lengthy civil war from 1991 to 2002, rapid population growth and one of the world’s lowest life expectancies means that as of 2015 more than 40% of the population was aged under 15, and 80% were aged 35 or younger, and many of these youth live in informal settlements. There is a critical need to identify both the current well-being of youth living in informal settlements, and to identify and test community-scale interventions that have potential to support and build well-being in this at-risk population, where wellbeing challenges range from lacking a clear voice in the community, to lack of access to education, lack of employment opportunities, social exclusion spatially as well as in decision making processes, exposure to poor housing conditions, (sexual) violence, early pregnancy, no access to health services, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal activity, and others. These challenges often leave youth living in informal settlements with little space for dreaming and little opportunity to increase their personal wellbeing. Addressing the needs of young people and investing in their potential is critical to national growth, development, and security. This report describes the results of a baseline survey undertaken for the “Creating spaces for young people in urban Sierra Leone” project. The project is a collaboration between Dreamtown (Denmark), Youth Dream Centre Sierra Leone (YDC-SL) (Sierra Leone), Urban Synergies Group (Australia), University of Canberra - Health Research Institute (Australia), University of Makeni (UNIMAK) (Sierra Leone), and Civil Society in Development (CISU) (Denmark, funding partner). This project seeks to support youth wellbeing through community-led public space interventions in informal settlements, while also examining the broader well-being status of youth in these settlements and key needs for further building wellbeing. Urbanisation is increasing the importance of public spaces, because they impact the individual and social wellbeing of urban citizens and act as places that reflect collective community life. The provision of access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces is key to urban wellbeing. The project focuses on youth in nine informal settlements, located in three cities across the country (three settlements in each of the cities). METHODS The project focuses on nine specific communities, three in the city of Freetown (Bonga Town, Congo Town and Funkia), three in the city of Makeni (Mabanta, New London and Renka), and three in the city of Kono (Kainsay, Koeyor and Koakoyima). The baseline survey was co-designed by project partners. The principle aim of the baseline survey was to collect a robust baseline dataset that contains information about characteristics of the informal settlement and provides qualified descriptions, characteristics and patterns on subjective well-being of the target population before the intervention, and which can be repeated after the public space interventions are implemented. Data were collected using face to face interviews, conducted by University of Makeni students. Data were captured on mobile devices (usually phones, sometimes tablets) as the interview was conducted, with paper forms also provided as a backup when mobile devices were not operable. This method enabled survey questions to be written in English but asked in Krio or other languages as appropriate, with interviewers able to translate questions into Krio (the most common spoken language in Sierra Leone) and in some cases other languages. A total of 1093 valid and complete survey responses were collected from people aged between 15 and 34 years of age. Once initial survey findings were generated, they were ground-truthed through an intensive three day process in which the data collectors, supervisors, University of Makeni staff, YDC staff and Dreamtown staff came together and evaluated the quality of the survey data and findings, and through visits to eight of the nine communities.