Inspiring slum teenagers through photography

By Joan Barsulai

It’s late in the afternoon on Sunday, and the sun is setting gracefully in Mathare slums.

A 19-year-old award winning filmmaker is roaming around the bus-stop with a heavy duty camera, wiping the sweat off his brow with an old brown handkerchief as he interviews passers-by. It has been a particularly long day and Jeff Mohammed, the filmmaker, has been shooting continuously since dusk.

Walking closely behind him are curious teenagers, eagerly waiting for their turn to film. After several hours of taking turns shooting, they call it a day and dash to a large dusty hall, where Jeff proceeds to give directions as the teenagers gather around a computer to begin editing.

Third documentary

This is Jeff’s third documentary and he is eager to make yet another great impression on audiences, as he has been doing since he was 12-years-old.

Jeff, who was born and raised in Mathare, was first introduced to filmmaking and photography at the age of 12, and he made his first award-winning film, One Goal One Hope, when he was only 15-years-old.

Behind Jeff’s great success is the Mwelu Foundation, an organisation that has been welcoming children from Mathare slum for the last nine years to learn photography and exchange ideas.

Every weekend, several children gather here religiously to learn photography, exchange ideas and basically just to grow. Mathare is home to approximately 500,000 people living below the poverty line.

Social ills ranging from alcoholism, child abuse and drug abuse are rife here and unless children are skilfully guided, several vices await to cut their potentially bright futures short. It is against this backdrop that the Mwelu Foundation was born, and continues to thrive.

Julius Mwelu, the 27-year-old founder of the organisation, grew up in Mathare under tough financial circumstances. Being the third born in a family of seven children, Julius discovered early that life was not easy.

Therefore when an opportunity arose when he was 13-years-old, he grabbed it with both hands and signed up for a project dubbed ‘Shoot back’, which taught photographic skills to a group of slum children. Through this project, a selection of his work got published in books.

Successful venture

After a stint of successful photographic ventures, Julius was taken in by a family in the Netherlands where he relocated to finish his school. He, however, never forgot where he had come from. In 2003, he returned to Mathare as a freelance photographer.

The slum children would follow him around curiously and ask intriguing questions.

“How come we never see the pictures that you take? What do they look like? And why don’t you do something with us, too?”

It is then that he realised that the social trends that had been predominant in his childhood were still present. Some children were not going to school and others walked around aimlessly on the streets. 

Eager to provide the children with a healthy pastime, he began giving them his camera whenever he came around. He noticed that even without any professional training, the children would consistently take interesting pictures. 

He knew that this was a talent worth nurturing. With this in mind, he used his own funds and bought a couple of point-and-shoot cameras and encouraged them to start taking pictures based on their lives.

The numbers quickly grew and he was forced to solicit for funding from Africalia, a foundation based in Belgium.

They provided office space and equipment. This has enabled the children to shoot up to 15 films a year.

Unexpected lifeline

The children often highlight their day-to-day life as their subjects. When the 2007 post-election violence broke out, the children took pictures of what was happening around them as a way of demonstrating.

Photography has evidently become an unexpected lifeline for these children. It has provided a means of livelihood for them, provided a sense of responsibility and a strong sense of belonging. Many are the life-changing stories, like Jeff Mohammed’s, that have come out of this unexpected pursuit. Most children are able to pay their school fees using proceeds from the photographs that they sell online.  One such beneficiary, Joseph Kinyua, a form two student, attributes his education success to Mwelu Foundation. “I pay my fees with the money I make from photography. My photos have also been published in a book about the environment. When I finish school, I intend to pursue photography as a career,” Kinyua says.

Saving lives

Another beneficiary, Maxwell Odhiambo, credits the organisation with saving his life. “If I had not been here, I would probably be in some den somewhere taking chang’aa or stealing.  I have become confident, and besides the shooting and editing skills I have acquired over the years, I have also learned to befriend people,” he says.

The foundation has a total of 45 children, ranging from ages 12 to 19 years, and has now become self-sufficient with the trained children now training the younger ones who join thus ensuring that the development cycle continues.

Each photograph sells for Sh8,000 on the mwelu.org website, with half of the proceeds going to the foundation. This is one unexpected occupation that has provided the children in this society with a better chance to make something of their lives, and Julius is determined to see this through.

“I have learnt that if we invest in the future of today’s youths then we will make this world a better place for everyone to live in,” he says.