Today is World Habitat Day, an international holiday first put forth by the United Nations and first celebrated in 1985 - and one that looks to create conscience in world leaders and citizens about the poor conditions many people live across the world. World Habitat Day is a time to reflect on the conditions of our planet's homes and shelters, and strive to make every individual and family across the globe live in a dignified and healthy place with all available services.
World Habitat Day is celebrated on the first Monday of October of every year, since 1986. The United Nations General Assembly, through resolution 40/202, created it in 1985, and was first celebrated on the next year. Every year, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) focal has different themes for World Habitat Day, which range from safe and healthy living environment, to job creation, healthy air quality, improved urban planning and safe and clean drinking water.
This year, World Habitat Day is all about the improvement of living conditions for those who live in the marginal sides of urban populations, as UN-Habitat releases its program "Voices from Slums." According to the UN-Habitat website, his campaign's aims are to "recognize life in slums, give voices to slum dwellers for improving quality of living conditions in existing slums."
This year's campaign for World Habitat Day calls for governments, non-governmental organizations and citizens across the globe to make slum dwellers the protagonists of the international holiday; this would happen by placing them in all available media platforms to raise awareness of their current living conditions.
UN-Habitat has even left available phone numbers in different languages for citizens across the planet to call and talk about their living conditions, and their testimonies will end up archived in the campaign's audio library, where people all over will be able to hear them out and help in any way they can!
You can watch the "Voices from Slums" promotional video below!
