Over the last couple of months, my aid worker colleagues and I have been so engrossed in the humanitarian crisis affecting war-ravaged Sri Lanka that nothing else seems as important. It is all too easy to get caught up in the immediate disaster, overlooking equally pressing needs.

Sri Lanka's urban poor - or the "forgotten people", as I have called them in a previous blog - are equally deserving of our attention. Yet they get a fraction of our attention in normal times, and during emergencies, none at all.

I heard stories of beggars in Colombo in 2005 making the journey east or southwards to get what was being handed out to tsunami survivors because they weren't receiving any help in the capital.

I bring this up because I recently paid a visit to one of the slums in Colombo where one of the kids benefitting from our child support programme was living. The child's mother had suddenly died and we were there to pay our respects. The trip - coming after visits to camps in Vavuniya for people displaced by the country's civil war - was a real eye-opener.

Slums in Colombo are probably like any other in the developing world (although the one depicted in the "Slumdog Millionaire" film is probably one of the worst). Houses are crowded together. However, you'll find people of all faiths and ethnicities living together peacefully, united by a strong sense of community that is required for their survival.

We have often said that in order for us to develop our conflict resolution programme, we should consult slum dwellers since they seem to have got it right.

While residents may have houses, or what can be described as houses, there is often poor sanitation and water facilities. So toilets and bathing facilities are shared and it is not uncommon to see people cooking, washing clothes and bathing outside.

During the rainy season, people have to endure the inevitable fast-flowing stream of raw sewage seeping into their homes from the dirt tracks outside. If you are unlucky to be living in areas that always get deluged - every year, without fail - you will suffer from flooding or worse. Your house may be built on marshy land which means 365 days a year, you are water-logged.

HELPING WHERE WE CAN

Visiting this child's house, in all its bareness, I was struck by the sheer hopelessness of the situation. This child, his sister and mother were living in two rooms. The bedroom was also a kitchen, and the living room doubled up as another bedroom, dining area and store room. I am not even sure where the bathroom was.

The mother had died suddenly and here were these two kids without anyone to fend for them. Their mother had been a day labourer just making ends meet while their father was a rickshaw taxi driver who had been murdered about four years ago. So there was nothing for them. No house or investment or estate.

Slum children live in abject poverty, rarely eating three square meals a day and usually missing out on a carefree childhood. Our child sponsorship programme was able to help the newly orphaned brother and sister with additional food and health checks and support for education. So in this sense these particular kids were lucky.

But many others are exposed to crime and other dangers. Very few of them make it past high school before they start fending for themselves.

The sad fact is that these kids and families are no less needy than those living in camps in the north and the east. To some extent, the families who have been displaced by war or disaster are often luckier because they receive assistance from organisations like ours and they are on the government list.

The urban poor are often out of sight and off the radar - it is very hard to get humanitarian agencies to work in these areas because it's not their mandate. It is the mandate of the government or local civil society.

My intention is not to spark a debate over politics or what agencies should and should not do. It is more to give pause for thought.

When we think about the needy in the camps in Vavuniya, let us also not forget those who live down our street or in our cities. While we individually or collectively may not be able to influence or support what is happening in the north, this doesn't mean we can't do something for others.

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