It’s A Slum Life In Nairobi
By Lilian Maingi and Philip Emase
NAIROBI, Kenya
Kenya is a country of almost 40 million people in East Africa, best known to the rest of the world for her beautiful beaches on the Indian Ocean coast and its safaris in the wild. Kenya is also known for producing some of the best athletes the world could afford. It is also the birthplace of US President Barack Obama’s father and the only developing nation that hosts the headquarters of a UN agency.
The economic dynamics of the country are as interesting as its citizens. There is a very tiny class that is filthy rich while the vast majority is poor. About 35 per cent of the Kenyan population lives on less than a dollar a day. The majority of the country’s urban poor live in slum areas, where they are enveloped by a high crime rate, food insecurity and widespread hopelessness. One of Africa’s largest slums, Kibera, is located in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
About 60 per cent of Nairobi’s population lives in the slums that occupy only 5 per cent of the city's land. These slum dwellers are generally a forgotten lot, and what many of them call a “home ” is at worst a shack made of waste nylon paper, carton boxes or mud, or at best an iron-sheet structure.
In Kenya, most folks who would be homeless are people who migrate from the rural areas in search of better opportunities in the city, which is never a guarantee. These people end up looking for the cheapest places to stay hoping to get proper jobs and the only place they can afford are these seedy slums.
Most jobs available in Kenya are offered on casual basis (and they don’t come easily) and often the pay is so little that decent housing remains a distant dream to many. So, to live affordably, many opt to build their lives in these slums and walk many miles to the Nairobi’s Industrial Area where they hope to come by some casual paid work. Those who are lucky may get absorbed on short term contracts that often last less than three months.
Ironically, every slum in Nairobi neighbours an affluent suburb. The women from the slums frequent these suburbs with the hope of hand-washing clothes for their richer compatriots at a small fee or for jobs as domestic workers during the day before returning to their piteous shanties at night.
The more entrepreneurial women engage in small scale business like selling vegetables and hawking wares. Unfortunately, only a tiny proportion of the slum population earn a living through such decent endeavours. Many would rather sell illegal liquor, which is more profitable given the large numbers of slum dwellers who need to drink their problems away and possibly induce some sleep. A few weeks ago, the local media reported a case in which some deadly moonshine killed 22 people in Kibera slums. Unregulated brewers had added some industrial chemicals to make their brew more potent, inadvertently turning it lethal.
Some women turn to prostitution, which plays a big part in the spread of HIV. Street urchins are a common sight in the slums, often scavenging for food and recyclable waste materials that they sell to middlemen at exploitative prices. Some of these urchins graduate into hardcore criminals and most armed robberies in the country can be traced back to the slums. Another group that sticks out of the slum population is the orphaned children, most of whom have lost their parents to the ravages of HIV/AIDS. Such children know no other life, and a large number eventually mature into the despair of their forebearers’ life and the cycle repeats itself.
For a long time, the Kenyan government did not seem to care about the slum population. However, they have recently started making efforts to improve their lives and housing has been a key focus in tandem with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The country’s ministry of housing has started developing low cost housing in the slums with support from UN-HABITAT.
The first batch of these houses was completed early this year and some residents of the massive Kibera slum have moved into the new housing projects. There are also numerous NGOs working to improve the lives of Kenya’s poor, targeting all aspects of their lives including health, education, economic empowerment, rights awareness and even psycho-social development.
Another keystone development that is likely to impact greatly on the situation in the slums is the recent passage of a new constitution in a peaceful referendum that was held in August 2010. The new law will devolve national resources from Kenya’s highly centralized system. Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki will promulgate the new law on August 27 and there is widespread optimism that life will begin to improve for the country’s citizens. Analysts say devolution will ensure equitable allocation of resources to the grassroots through the county governments that will be established.
A majority of the vendors working with The Big Issue Kenya are people from these slums. Our focus is to fight poverty and long-term unemployment because homelessness is not as big a problem in Africa as it is in the West. We keep each vendor for two years after which we hope they will have moved on to a better life. During these two years, we train them on basic business skills, good saving habits and other entrepreneurship practices.
Kenya may not be able to quickly eliminate the slums, but it is clear that there are slow but tangible efforts to improve the living standards in the informal settlements.
Lilian Maingi is the editor of The Big Issue Kenya Magazine, which is a member of the International Network of Street Papers (INSP). Philip Emase is the magazine’s volunteer project manager.