Glastonbury Festival - Slum the size of Bristol

Slum the size of Bristol

from News - 02 Dec 2003

It is Africa’s biggest slum, home to more than three quarters of a million people – but until recently it was officially invisible.

The sprawling shanty town of Kibera, which houses more people than the Bristol conurbation, lies within a few minutes walk of the high-rise hotels and office blocks of Nairobi.

The contrast between wealth and poverty in Kenya is nowhere more visible than here.

But the government of former President Daniel Arap Moi chose to ignore it and Kibera did not even appear on maps.

Thousands of people, desperate for work, travel to Nairobi from rural Kenya and neighbouring countries and end up in Kibera, crammed into tiny clay, wood and corrugated iron dwellings.

There is barely a blade of grass to be seen and the pot-holed dirt roads become seas of mud after rain, but somehow the people manage to struggle through to buy or barter the essentials of life from thousands of roadside booths and stalls.

Unemployment in Kenya is running at 40 per cent, with 50 per cent of the population living below the poverty line. In Kibera the figures are far higher. Many of Kibera’s children have been orphaned by Aids and other diseases, and in 2001 75 per cent had no schooling.But the sheer determination of the community, in partnership with Oxfam, is bringing about remarkable changes.

Michael Eavis, founder of the Glastonbury Festival, which is a major Oxfam supporter, met some of the locals involved during a week long visit to Oxfam projects in Kenya and was deeply impressed by their work.

Western Daily Press readers can make a difference to communities world-wide by supporting Oxfam’s new Glastonbury Festival Appeal. If you are one of the thousands who enjoy the festival, or simply admire its free spirit, now is the time to show your appreciation.

Kibera’s parents know education is the best hope of a way out of poverty for their children. But the town has no public primary school, and poverty stops children from going to school outside the township. Even the schools set up by the community were proving too expensive for many.

When a survey showed that only 25 per cent of children were in school, three community organizations were galvanised into action.Originally formed as clean-up groups in three of Kibera’s ‘villages’, they established the Kibera Slum Education Programme (KISEP).

In just two years and with some financial support from Oxfam, KISEP has established five early childhood centres where three to eight-year-olds get the food essential to concentrate on lessons, and three primary schools. It is proud to say that an extra 2,053 children are now going to school and it is counselling young girls on issues of sexuality so that they are empowered and can take care of themselves.

The work does not stop there. Sixty per cent of children are still missing out on education. KISEP is at work in four of the 10 ‘villages’ in Kibera and hopes to expand.

Another vital part of its work is lobbying to change government attitudes. The new government of President Kibaki has pledged free primary education for all, but that will take time. And for the very poorest even the modest 50 Kenyan shillings amonth school fee charged by KISEP is too much.

Poverty stops many children going to secondary school and there is a need for vocational training for this youngster whose schooling stops at the age of 12-13. No one seeing the concentration on the faces of children at Mashimoni squatters primary school could doubt the passion for education in Kibera.

When Michael Eavis was shown round it was Saturday morning and a dozen youngsters had come in for extra coaching in their weak subject, in this case English. If it sounds like a normal English primary school, think again. The children sat at rough desks knocked together from any wood to hand.

The floor was covered in mud and the broken windows will probably wait a long time to be mended.

Ann Akinyi Ejakait, co-ordinator of the KISEP programme, said: “These children would not have had any access to education without Oxfam's support helping to provide materials and salaries. “In the long term we want to lobby the Government, especially for trained teachers. Lobbying and advocacy is a big issue We believe the Government should be a service provider and what we are doing is only a stop-gap.”

Community members have done a lot and raised 243,000 Kenyan shillings – about £1,770 – which we have used to buy structures to pull down and make space.

In the midst of great poverty, yet there’s hope

Caroline Anyangu and daughter Diana single-parent and mother-of-four Caroline Anyangu would love to send
her children to school – but she cannot even raise the 50 Kenyan shillings a month (less than 50p) for the KISEP project.

She is eight months behind with the rent on the tiny, one-room house where the whole family share a bed, and just raising the money for two meals a day is hard work. Caroline, 35, came to Nairobi from rural Kenya looking for work, married and now has three sons, Moses, Julius and Peter aged from 14 to five, and a daughter, Diana, four. Caroline’s husband abandoned her when she was expecting Diana and now she runs a fish business, buying from a wholesaler outside Kiber and selling in the settlement.

She also rears chickens – a couple of chicks are pecking in a makeshift incubator warmed by an oil lamp as we talk.

Sometimes she only manages to sell one fish a day – for about 35 Kenyan shillings. But three tomatoes alone cost 10 shillings or so and an egg or a bundle of vegetables cost five shillings. When things get hard, neighbours help each other.

A poster of Kenya’s new President Kibaki is pinned to a wall, alongside a children’s alphabet poster. For the moment this elegant woman can only offer her children a home-taught ABC, but she hopes that her community, Oxfam, and Mr Kibaki will change that.

Final part: School of hard knocks

Reprinted with kind permission from the Western Daily Press. Words by Tina Rowe, and pictures by Steve Roberts.

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Slum the size of Bristol

In the midst of great poverty, yet there’s hope

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