Each afternoon, after school, nine-year-old Success Damisa changes out of his uniform and eats lunch in the one-room shanty he shares with his three siblings and parents in one of Nigeria’s poorest neighbourhoods. He then heads straight to an after-school programme and joins other children in extra-curricular lessons.

“When he comes back from these lessons, he still goes to read his books,” says his mother, Blessing Damisa, who works as a food vendor. “The classes have helped him to perform so well in school that he was recently given a double promotion, skipping one class.”

Small and shy, Success wants to emulate Lionel Messi and become a superstar footballer when he grows up. It’s a big dream for someone growing up in Dustbin Estate, the Lagos neighbourhood built on a swamp. An estimated 5,500 people, who cannot afford to live elsewhere, call the estate home.

It needn’t be a barrier to success, though. Some of Nigeria’s most prominent footballers, – including Watford FC’s Odion Ighalo, former Newcastle striker Obafemi Martins and Arsenal legend Kanu Nwankwo – learned their skills in Ajegunle, the parent community of Dustbin Estate.

The slum is divided in two by a sewage canal full of stagnant water, responsible for the putrid smells that permanently linger. A few decades ago, roaming homeless people who were too poor to sand-fill the swamps continued to dump refuse until the area resembled dry land – and then they moved in.

The nickname for the neighbourhood came from the children, says Solomon Aare of the LOTS Charity Foundation, a local NGO that works in the area. Originally from the Dustbin Estate, the 21-year-old joined as a volunteer in his last days of high school and returned to work there full-time after obtaining a diploma in computer engineering. He is now the administrator of a three-bedroom flat that serves as a house, school, church and playground for the children.

Blessing Damisa outside her home. Photograph: Eromo Egbejule

“When it rains, everywhere is flooded and the canal overflows, so it spills some of its content into the houses. It’s a sorry sight and it’s not healthy for the children,” says Aare. In a country with a critical unemployment rate – currently at 13.3% – a number of the residents fend for their families by charging people who want to dump refuse in the community, between N100 and N200 (20 to 40p) per drop.

“We pay N1500 [around £3] every month to rent this house,” says Blessing, pointing to her squalid ramshackle apartment made of wooden boards and old banners nailed together. “But it is too much to pay because the economy is bad.” Her family shares a single toilet with four others.

Like many other shanties, the foundation of litter is covered with old, grey, wet rugs with peeping strands of algae. Beside some of the houses, refuse is piled high in heaps large enough to swallow a child.

There are half-a-dozen boreholes that the entire community relies on for water. Four of them were donated by LOTS, but because of overload one is no longer functional. Across the community, there is no sign of a government project or initiative. A couple of years ago, however, a government bulldozer arrived to demolish a school just days after it made the front page of a national newspaper for its state of neglect.

Success’s dream of becoming a superstar footballer is mostly down to the work of LOTS, which organises the after-school learning programme for 150 children from the community. There are computer classes during the week, and football practice and aerobics classes on the weekends. LOTS also operates in two other slums – Makoko and the Beggars’ Colony in Oko-Baba.

Tolulope Sangosanya started LOTS in 2005 when she was still an undergraduate student. “I needed to be part of a lasting change and build a positive legacy,” she says. “[The children] have seen the worst and they will now work for the best. Their attitudes keep getting better as we show them the possibilities that education opens up for them.”

LOTS has provided a home for some children, such as 11-year-old Basit Abayomi, who was taken in by the charity four years ago when his abusive mother threw a knife at him. “I’m happy to be here,” he says. “I don’t want to stop living here but if I have to, I will come back and visit a lot.” Basit is in his last year of primary school and wants to be a banker. “I like doing mathematics and I want to help my country save its money,” he says.

LOTS also stepped in to pay for 16-year-old Faith Eze’s last three years of school when her parents could not come up with the N38,000 (£76) for her tuition each term. Faith travels to school from Amukoko, another community two bus journeys away.

“It feels like part of a family, sharing things with them and learning with them,” she says. The teenager idolises some of Nollywood’s finest stars and wants to be an actress. “Since childhood, I have always wanted to be involved in the arts, in singing and in entertainment.”

Faith and Basit are two of more than 30 children who attend schools outside the community, with financial help from LOTS. The charity’s apartment-office is small and a larger facility is needed, but the organisation’s budget is stretched thin with all of its projects and six full-time staff to pay for.

For now, most funding comes from the sale of proceeds from Sangosanya’s farm, because “emotional marketing is hard to do in a recession and there’s no government support”, she says.

Sangosanya has plans to organise a soup kitchen initiative for the rest of the community, and to increase the number of medical outreaches she currently coordinates. “My dream is to turn Dustbin Estate into Treasure Estate, [and make it a] housing project with basic facilities available for families.”

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