1. MADRID "LA CANADA" LARGEST SHANTY TOWN IN EUROPE
Shanty towns
MADRID "LA CANADA" LARGEST SHANTY TOWN IN EUROPE

2. What is it?
Shanty towns are settlements of impoverished people who live in improvised dwellings made from scrap plywood, corrugated metal, and sheets of plastic. Shanty towns, which are usually built on the periphery of cities, often do not have proper sanitation, electricity, or telephone services.

3. MADRID "Canada Real Galina" LARGEST SLUMS IN EUROPE
Canada Real Galina is a 16km-long, 75m-wide strip of economic and social misery. Believed to be Europe's largest shanty town, it is a mere 15-minute drive from Madrid city Centre.

4. Population
Dubbed the "slum of shame", the 40-year-old settlement, home to 40,000 people, is completely devoid of any public services – no pavements, schools, sewage or drainage systems. Many of its residents are long-standing, legal immigrants from Portugal, Romania, Morocco or South America.

5. health, medicine
Official indifference to the Galina is great. Only a single mobile health unit covers the entire township. Local social workers volunteer to help, but often clandestinely in order to avoid their bosses' disapproval.

6. Problems
Social workers estimate 90 per cent of Madrid's illegal drug supply is channeled through here. Actual dealing is overwhelmingly limited to a 1km-long open-air "shooting gallery" within the township. Even on a rain-soaked midweek morning, business looks brisk, with most buyers coming in vehicles. Scruffy-looking men in their twenties or thirties standing around braziers urgently wave down any passing cars. Few addicts actually get out: most can be seen, half-slumped in their seats, through steamed-up windows of the four dozen or so cars lined on either side of the track.

7. Авторы: группа Павленок Ирины 2014 год