By Michael Oriedo
Happy voices and laughter fill the air as a group of men and women armed with spades and rakes unclog trenches overflowing with waste.
The excitement is replicated at another site where a second group is collecting litter that seems to be part of the slum’s sloping landscape.
Dressed in blue overcoats, black gumboots and gloves, the men and women numbering about 30 n each group are involved in a cash-for-work food security project in the expansive Mathare slum.
Slum residents involved in a food-for-work project clean trenches in their neighbourhood. |
"We clean our environment and then get paid for it. We earn some money to buy food and cater for other needs," says a resident involved in the project.
Started three months ago, the project is benefiting over 1,400 families living in Mathare and adjacent slums.
Other needs
"Initially we distributed food for free but we discovered residents would sell and use the money for other needs. Food was not their only priority," says Mr Claudio Torres of Co-operation International, (Coopi) an Italian organisation running the scheme.
A visit to the slum later made them redesign the project that Torres says kills two birds with one stone.
"Residents clean the environment and get paid for it. This way the environment is improved and people are nourished," he says.
"The area was choking with filth. Garbage was strewn all over and raw sewage flowed in front of shanties that make up one of the oldest slums in Nairobi," he says.
Coopi involved people from different Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and Self Help Groups operating in the slum.
"We engaged diverse groups. Every member in the scheme is affiliated to a particular association," says Claudio. "Currently, we are working with over 50 groups in Mathare, Huruma and Kiamaiko slums," he adds.
The targeted people include HIV and Aids patients, ex-criminals and delinquents, widows, orphans and former drug addicts.
"Another of our aims is to help the sick and helpless as well as rehabilitate those in the grip of social problems.
In a month, each person in the project works for two consecutive days from 9am to 1pm.
Seeing the groups at work, one might mistake them for Nairobi City Council employees, but for their blue overcoats.
"We formulated the arrangement so that we can serve as many families as possible. We take one person from each family," says Mr Simon Kokoyo, a social worker with the project.
Members are paid Sh1,540 per month which they receive directly but through their accounts at the Co-operative Bank.
"We came up with the bank payment system to encourage saving. We opened accounts at a local branch and gave them ATM cards so that they can withdraw the money themselves," says Claudio.
Banking services
This move, Claudio says, restricts residents from using all their pay and has also enabled them to access banking services.
"There are many economic activities in the slums which, if developed, can help uplift the lives of the residents," he says. "Paying them through the bank is a way of bringing the corporate community to the slums."
Jane Wangari, a beneficiary of the scheme, says she is able to pay her rent and buy food from her earnings. The average rent in Mathare is Sh500.
"Since I started working in the programme, I can now tell the landlord confidently that I will pay him. Initially, I would evade him at the end of the month or accumulate arrears by paying in bits," she says.
Jane, who is a member of a group of ex-convicts, adds that the programme has helped to dignify the slum community.
George Omondi, a HIV patient, says the scheme has given him hope and encouragement.
Though the money does not cater for all her needs, Joyce Odhiambo says she has used her previous earnings to boost her small business.
"It is the first time we are having such a project. We were really struggling to make ends meet but with this scheme, life is a little better," she adds.
In an area where residents are polarised along tribal lines and ethnic tension is a common feature, the food security scheme helps to unite them.
"People from different communities put their differences aside and work together to clean their environment," says Claudio. On the night preceding the interview, members of two communities had engaged in brawls as they strived to control the illicit but lucrative changaa trade in Mathare slum.
Residents in the project say the slums have become cleaner since the food security programme began. "We have not achieved our best, but sanitation and security has improved," says one supervisor.
Urban farming
Mr Claudio says the organisation has identified some plots in the area, which they would use to teach residents how to engage in urban farming.
"We will plant sukuma wiki (kale), paw paws, trees among other plants that would better the environment and residents livelihood. We will also rear animals," he says.
Claudio says the United Nation’s (UN) funded programme, under the Emergency Relief Fund (ERF) is expected to continue benefiting more slum dwellers.
