In cities around the world, families live in trash dumps, subsisting on the piles of waste with little hope or opportunity to improve their life situations. These communities wrestle with extreme poverty, severe health problems, child prostitution, drug addictions, and little or no access to schooling and other opportunities for socio-economic advancement.  They are all over the world... and hidden from view. 

A soul-moving video of the Dia de Luz (Day of Light)  Concert in the Managua city dump:
http://braddigan.com/llm/diadeluz/

A great documentary that was up for an Oscar this year on the Guatemala City dump:
http://www.recycledlifedoc.com/

It's really amazing and heart-breaking to see the need of these communities.

Existing trash dump communities:

Cairo, Egypt
Rumored to house the largest trash dump community in the world

The Zabbaleen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabbaleen

Association for the Protection of the Envoronment http://www.ape.org.eg/   is a non-profit organization serving the communities of garbage collectors in Cairo, Hurghada, Tora and Wadi El Natruun in Egypt. A.P.E Objective is to improve the lives of the indegenous groups of garbage collectors as individuals and as a community .A.P.E combines its interest in serving the poor with its interest in protecting the environment specifically with regards to man-made household waste. It seeks to support the garbage collectors in their private activities of waste collection, disposal and recycling as well as devise its own schemes within this grand scheme of things.  A.P.E improves lives through hands-on implementation of projects in the area of income generation, revolving around recycling, primary health care , literacy, leadership training, mobilization of community resources, advocacy for women and girls, as well as networking with non-profit groups in the area of environmnet and developmnet while fostering strong partnership with government and private sector.

Guatemala City, Guatemala
Largest in Central America
Organizations: Safe Passage

Managua, Nicaragua: La Chureca
~1,500 people
Razoo Chureca page

Chinandega, Nicaragua: Children of the Dumps  A successful example and developing model for removing children from a city dump has evolved from Father Marco Dessy, an Italian missionary who has spent the past ten years trying to alleviate this problem from the city dump in Chinandega, Nicaragua. For the purpose of this website, successfully removing a child from a city dump starts with the child's education and nutrition and only ends when the entire community reaches financial independence. This is a complete and total process. The only way to successfully reduce poverty and children at risk is through education leading to financial sustainability. Without reaching this goal, charity and dependence on others never ends. read more here: www.childrenofthedumps.org/

Tijuana, Mexico:
Organization: The Responsibility Project                                                                                                               book: Across the Wire by Luis Alberto Urrea

Phnom Penh, Cambodia: Steung Mean Chey landfill 

Organization:Center for Children's Happiness http://www.cchcambodia.org/                                            Friends of CCH http://www.friendsofcch.org/

Others:
Olinda, Brazil

Maputo, Mozambique

Many more...

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