Transforming Life for Young People: Public Space Action in Informal Settlements in Sierra Leone

Abstract

The article makes a posteriori contribution as part of the active place-making discourse in the African context within two dimensions: First, it substantiates how public spaces can be transformed when shifting the focus from place-based to a process-oriented approach framed around the empowerment of the human condition to improve subjective wellbeing. Second, it provides rich insights into a case study on several informal settlements in urban Sierra Leone, West Africa, based on our project aspiration to create safe and conducive spaces for one of the most under-prioritized population groups - the urban youth. Together, both dimensions provide an invitation to evaluate way's how the UN-Habitat Public Space toolkit 13 can be effectively implemented at a local level and upscaled to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11.7.
Philosophically, the mixed method action-research project received inspiration from Henry Lefebvre's social production of space which informed the design of the dream-catching process and was translated into a unique social research methodology that bridges the disciplinary divide from public health, anthropology, and urban design. The role of process-oriented approaches to place-making, in this context called space-making, is the key element of this paper. However, the empirical baseline data on subjective wellbeing collected from 1091 young people function as the foundation method to identify and validate the possible impact factor of the public space interventions to improve their environmental conditions. The conclusion reflects on the emergence of new epistemologies associated with the idea of urban loveability as it embraces the public space as an open-ended process to place-making in the African context to transform not just a place but the human condition - in this case, marginalised urban youth.