Billy Lafalaise has spent much of his 16 years avoiding the allure of gang life in one of the world’s most notorious slums. He was born in Cité Soleil, the sprawling shantytown of Haiti’s downtrodden and chaotic capital, Port-au-Prince.

“Everyone wants to be in a gang here,” Billy says, his mother Jinette nodding in agreement. “And every gang is always looking for recruits.”

Violence is a way of life in Cité Soleil, even away from the latest wave of anti-government protests currently engulfing Haiti. On Wednesday, the UN warned of the risk of a full-blown humanitarian crisis as security incidents and roadblocks disrupt aid deliveries.

Cars and police stations have been set alight this week as protestors demand the resignation of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse. In Carbaret, a city just north of Port-au-Prince, they dug a trench about four-feet wide and four-feet deep, on both sides of a bridge, blocking transportation between the capital and Haiti’s second largest city, Cap-Haitien in the north.

It is not hard to see why. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, with nearly a quarter of its 11 million citizens living below the extreme poverty line of $1.23 a day and 60% living on less than $2 a day. And Cité Soleil is among the hardest hit neighbourhoods.

Children are seen in the shantytown of Cité Soleil. Photograph: Phil Clarke Hill/The Guardian

Much of the slum is an open sewer. Outside the school where Billy studies, infant children bathe in water contaminated with sewage. The stench is unbearable, and this year’s rainy season has been particularly heavy, frequently flooding houses.

“We are living in a sewer,” said Jerome Racha, one of Billy’s adult neighbours, who attends classes at a nearby educational centre that also accepts parents. “It’s disgusting, but the government won’t do anything about it.”

The political turmoil across the country has pushed Cité Soleil even further down the rattled government’s list of priorities. A mishandled economy and widespread shortages in food and fuel have brought thousands to the streets to demand the removal of Moïse, who desperately clings to power.

But in Cité Soleil, scandal in the presidential palace is irrelevant. “The money might get allocated here, but it’ll never show up,” Racha said. “It doesn’t make a difference what happens with politicians.”

With virtually no opportunities for work, many children of Billy’s age join gangs – known as chimères – who run extortion rackets, kidnap for ransom, and fight over territory. The chimères descended from paramilitary militias in Cité Soleil who were loyal to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the populist president who became increasingly authoritarian until being ousted in a 2004 US-backed coup.

An aerial view of Cité Soleil’s sprawling landscape. Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/AP

The nearby port gives gang members access to the international drug trade and people smuggling networks. When the catastrophic earthquake of 2010 struck Port-au-Prince, bringing the country to its knees and taking tens of thousands of lives, a cholera outbreak swiftly followed – introduced by UN peacekeepers – while incarcerated criminals escaped the local prison and slipped back into their old ways in Cité Soleil.

But there are signs that things are changing. A delicate peace between warring chimères has so far stood since April, which was the last time Billy fell asleep to the sound of gunfire.

“That was around the last time I saw a dead body,” Billy said, adding that he has lost count of the number of corpses he has seen in his life. “Things have calmed down now, but the fighting could start again at any time.”

For Billy’s mother, it was a blessing that he could go to a school supported by the AVSI Foundation, an Italian NGO working in Haiti since 1999. AVSI receives funding in Haiti for some of its projects, including the school, from the EU.

“A gang life is not a life I wanted for my son,” Jinette Lafalaise said, brushing his shoulder. “So I support him in whatever else he wants to do.”

Haiti has a complicated history with NGOs. In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, many were heavily criticised for poor crisis management, and last year Oxfam became embroiled in scandal when news broke that its workers had been soliciting sexual favours for money. Haiti later withdrew Oxfam GB’s right to operate in the country “for violation of Haitian law and serious violation of the principle of the dignity of the human beings”.

For locals in Cité Soleil, being let down by charities is compounded by the absence of the government, leaving them with little other recourse.

“We have to thank those that are here,” said Lafalaise. “Without them, there wouldn’t be much for our children.”

Billy studies along with 250 others. Though he is at the age students would normally graduate, he has been held back several years due to joining late. Like the vast majority of his neighbours, he does not speak or understand French, which – until 2013, when it was replaced by Haitian Creole – was the language of the classroom in Cité Soleil.

Cité Soleil is one of the areas hardest hit by the poverty that grips Haiti. Photograph: Phil Clarke Hill/The Guardian

Outside school, he is an apprentice mechanic, helping repair tap taps - the flamboyantly decorated pickup trucks that serve as the city’s main form of public transport. He also raps, performing his own songs for his friends and classmates. He hopes one day to perform abroad.

Danilus Derival is similarly grateful that education is becoming an ever more attractive option for youngsters in the neighbourhood. His daughter, Youventha, recently enrolled at the school and aspires to become a nurse when she graduates.

“It’s good to have dreams,” said the elder Derival, seeking shade under a tree. “We have so many problems here.”

But most people were not so lucky. Watson Etienne lived his whole life in Cité Soleil, and found himself dropping out of school and running in a gang when a teenager. His brother was killed in a dispute with a rival gang when he was 19 years old.

“It’s what all my friends were doing so I just fell into it,” Etienne said with a stoic candour. “Things have got much better now because people are starting to get more opportunities, being a chimere isn’t the only thing for young people to do.”

He also coaches other former gang members on how to leave criminality behind, supported by AVSI. He claims that finding a passion is key, alongside letting go of past grudges.

“All the people I used to have trouble with, and there’s a lot of them, I would gladly shake hands with them now,” he said. “That makes me more powerful than any gang leader.”

But hopes raised and dashed are a familiar pattern to Haitians, whose daily struggles are becoming exacerbated as the political unrest continues.

As Etienne sat, scanning his currently calm neighbourhood from a second-floor landing of the educational centre, Billy showed up in the courtyard below, rapping for anyone who would listen. “Words, not guns, are the future of Cité Soleil,” Etienne says with determination.