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DAY ONE - CHUKUA HATUA(Take a Step). AJ writes on a community development programme featured on the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation this month.
Nairobi, KENYA - There are certain stories about Kenya that will always make front page news: stories on corruption, drought, crime and poverty. The name Kibera (as the largest slum settlement in Africa) is intertwined with the identity of Kenya in the minds of many. More so since John le Carre's novel The Constant Garden.
And so the attempts by a group of people in Huruma, a smaller slum settlement on the outskirts of Nairobi, to pull themselves out of squalor and improve their living conditions and their quality of life has been unpublicized, unrecognized and ignored by the international media.
***Kenyan slums
In a world where 32% of the world's urban population live in slums (IRIN, 2004), 60% of Nairobi residents (KARA - in full) live in informal settlements. In other words, more than half of the city's population is squeezed into one-twentieth of its total area (Weru, 2004).
These settlements experience high levels of over-crowding, unhealthy living conditions, and inadequate infrastructure. People who live in these settlements lack access to clean drinking water, proper plumbing, health care, and other basic services (IRIN, 2004 and KARA). In addition, slum residents are more susceptible to crime and violence. They suffer a greater incidence of disease and higher rates of child mortality.
"In Nairobi - where over 60 per cent of the urban population live on 5 per cent of the land - 150 out of every 1,000 children die under the age of five, compared to 83.9 deaths per 1,000 children in the formal areas of the city and 113 in rural areas" (Tibaijuka, 2005).
The creation of slums or informal settlements in Nairobi has been traced to the colonial policy of racial segregation (IRIN, 2004) which was followed by rapid population growth without corresponding housing provision and population resettlement (UN-Habitat global report on human settlements, 2003). Today, Kibera is renowned for being the largest of Africa's slums with 3,000 persons per hectare (Badiane in IRIN, 2004). But it is just one of the slums within Nairobi, let alone in Kenya.
UN Habitat in 2005 highlighted urbanisation as the second most important challenge facing Africans, after the HIV/AIDS by (Tibaijuka, 2005). It predicts that Africa will stop being a rural continent by 2030, and since an estimated 51 per cent of its people already live in urban areas (Tibaijuka, 2005); if the issue of slums is not addressed immediately then the situation could have catastrophic results.
Pamoja Trust and the Huruma Project
Pamoja Trust is a Kenyan based NGO that has identified the existence of slums as a crucial deterrent to Kenya's development. It aims to improve the living conditions of Kenyans that live within such settlements by:
- developing a consensus among its residents on issues of land and structure entitlements before negotiating with government for land and infrastructure, and
- establishing community based savings schemes to fund these housing and infrastructure initiatives.
In 2000, Pamoja Trust started its first project in Huruma. Huruma has a population of 6,569 people who have an average household monthly income of Kshs 5,000 (US $ 62) (Weru, 2004). A study conducted by Pamoja in 2001 showed that though an upgrading of the housing, sanitation and health facilities was vital for Huruma residents, the greater need was for a regularization of tenure for its residents in light of the forced evictions that regularly took place.
Many hurdles were faced by it in conducting this study and in attempting to uncover the real statistics and needs of the Huruma community. For example, a lot of anxiety was expressed by Huruma residents on the viability of the project. There were both tribal conflicts and conflicts between structure owners and tenants ("Structure owners want to acquire full legal tenure of the land on which their structures are built; tenants want recognition of their right to live there and the possibility of becoming land and house owners" Weru, 2004). Some groups also provided false information to surveyors in an attempt to maximise their individual gains from the project. The lack of a government policy also served to exacerbate the issues.
House construction in Huruma finally began in 2003 and it was the successes of their initiative in upgrading their living conditions from the squalor that characterizes slum settlements that were commended and celebrated in the community development segment of the Hatua Show.
The Hatua Show
Organised by the Mohammed Amin Foundation, the Hatua show (to be aired on KBC TV - Kenya Broadcasting Corporation - at the end of May 2006) is structured around the powerful and lyrical Kiswahili message "Chukua Hatua" meaning "Take a step". Designed around the concept of a crossroads, which represents the meeting of the paths of awareness, responsibility and action, it covers different elements of Kenyan life and encourages Kenyans to take action in different spheres of their lives.
The show on community development began with a 10-minute clip on the Huruma project and was followed by an interactive discussion between audience members who represented the residents of Huruma estate, the Kenyan Youth Parliament, the Nairobi City Council, UN Habitat, Pamoja Trust and community groups such as Rotaract.
The clip showed how Huruma residents, through a community initiative in partnership with Pamoja Trust, replaced slum constructions with stone buildings over a period of three years. The project allowed Huruma residents to share a room with ten people rather than 63. Basic amenities that the Kenyan government had failed to provide were supplied by the efforts of a community.
While representatives from Pamoja Trust focused during the discussion on the initiation of the Huruma project and the challenges faced, Huruma residents talked of the possibility of using this venture as a pilot project for a nationwide upgrading of slum settlements in Nairobi.
A second area that was talked about was the negative mindsets of slum residents, as identified in the Pamoja survey. The discussion showed how such an attitude had developed for two reasons: firstly, in Kenya, the poor have never seen benefits and so making them believe that success and the achievement of their dreams is possible is a challenge; and secondly, Kenyans have so often been conned either by their own or cheated by their government that they are reluctant to hope for a better existence.
The consensus reached was that this attitude must be deconstructed in order to facilitate the success of such community development projects. UN Habitat said that with time, consistency and persistency, Kenyans would realize that these projects are authentic and that gradually an attitude change would occur. Building a relationship with the Huruma community would be like creating any other relationship. It would need time, persistence, effort and most importantly, empathy.
In their initial surveys Pamoja had found that many slum residents had continued to protest the state's lack of action (Weru, 2004). The creation and successful completion of the Huruma project however showed that development could be achieved through the attempts of the community without any assistance from the state.
The Hatau Show that day closed with a strong call for personal dedication:
- Step 1: Identify yourself within a community;
- Step 2: Ask yourself what you can do to help;
- Step 3: Go ahead and start doing something to help. Take action; chukua hatua.
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