THE foul stench of poverty hogs your nostrils long before you reach the battered tin shacks. As we squeeze through the chaotic hubbub that fills the narrow, dirt alleys, people peer through the car window and stare. Mzungu! White person! Word ripples though the crowds as we reach our destination. I stick close to my guides, Josiah Omotto and Catherine Njuguna, as we step out of the car and into a marketplace full of Borana men from northern Kenya who have come to sell their livestock in the city. In the confusion of noise, smell, animals, people and flies, Omotto recognises Mary Kamande, a short woman in her fifties. He greets her as Mama, the respectful salutation for an older woman. She shakes our hands. 鈥淜aribu!鈥� she says. 鈥淲elcome to Redeemed.鈥�
It鈥檚 hard to miss the irony in that name. Redeemed Village is one of the worst slums in Nairobi. The oppressive stink of putrefying human filth curls upwards from the open sewers, rancid and all-pervasive. More than 300 battered, rusting corrugated iron huts are crammed into a 3-hectare site baking in the fierce Sun. Each single-roomed shack is typically home to eight people, each living on an average of seventy pence a day. They are disenfranchised, dispossessed and disowned by the government.
Yet, here, among this squalor, a women鈥檚 group has been formed to take on the policy-makers and fight for a better life. It represents people who were without a voice until two years ago, when the women were offered video cameras and training by a coalition of four charities led by the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG). The women鈥攎any of whom cannot read or write, and none of whom owns a television鈥攖ook up the challenge. Their videos have since brought their plight to the attention of Kenyan policy-makers and to the world at large. This year they won the Betinho Prize, awarded by the Association for Progressive Communications, which promotes the use of communications technology for development.
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Following Kamande, we pick our way over the dug-earth sewage channels to a dark blue hut. Inside, seven women are waiting. Things are awkward for a moment, but everyone soon relaxes. The women break into a song, dancing and clapping to start the meeting. Then they pray. Seated, they all raise their hands like steeples over their heads as a symbol of their greatest desire鈥攁 proper roof over their heads. Then, prayer-like, the women chant: 鈥淢uungano: nguvu yetu. Ardhi na makao: haki yetu. Umoja: silaha ya maskini. Uoga: umaskini milele.鈥� It means, 鈥淯nion: our strength. Land and shelter: our rights. Unity: weapon of the poor. Cowardice: eternal poverty.鈥�
ITDG and other charities work by supporting groups that already exist in the slums. 鈥淲e are trying to get a network of slum-dwellers who can exchange information and present a common front to the policy-makers鈥�, explains Omotto, programme manager of ITDG鈥檚 Urban Livelihood and Shelter Programme. 鈥淲hat we want to do is enable them to have a voice.鈥� The Women鈥檚 Information and Communications Technology project (WICT) aims to do just that.
Kamande settles her spectacles on her nose and reads a statement in Swahili. 鈥淚n 1998, the union (muungano) of community groups had an awareness-raising session to confront oppression. There we were told that a coward will die poor. Now muungano is in our blood. After learning that being united helps, we decided to help ourselves. We are continuing with our activist work, especially fighting for secure tenure. Land is our right as Kenyans.鈥�
Forming a union gave the women the impetus to improve their lot. For example, they collect 50 Kenyan shillings (45 pence) a month from members to buy up land and pay for their children鈥檚 education. In addition, Redeemed has no direct water supply, so the women fought the local council for fresh water. Now they can buy it from street vendors.
Flying toilets
Then there鈥檚 sewage. There is one block of toilets for more than 700 people and it used to be in a terrible state鈥攖he latrines were rarely cleaned and stank so badly that no one would use them. The women now clean them regularly and charge users a small fee. The income goes into the group鈥檚 savings scheme.
But this has not cured the huge sanitation problems. Most people in Redeemed still resort to 鈥渇lying toilets鈥�. That is, they do what needs to be done in a plastic bag and then throw it out of the window. This happens at night especially, when it is too dangerous to venture outside. There are no play areas for the children, who end up grubbing around in human filth. When the rains come, flooding spreads cholera and typhoid.
The women give me a tour of the village. Turning and ducking through the tiny alleyways of Redeemed, it鈥檚 just possible to squeeze through in single file. I have to bend double to clear the low, rusting eaves, and plant each foot either side of the stagnant sewage that oozes thickly along a depression in the dirt track. As we stumble through the narrow maze, I find myself muttering 鈥淥h my God!鈥� over and over. One of the women catches my drift and nods grimly. 鈥淢y God,鈥� she echoes.
We end up at the home of 63-year-old Virginia Wanjiru Njihia who sells plastic sheeting to support her eight grandchildren, most of them orphaned. Pinned to the wall of her home is a curling poster condemning violence against women. For Njihia, the WICT project has been a huge help. 鈥淲e are glad that our problems will be seen by others,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e are very happy because we represent poor people positively.鈥�
The video project followed on from the union. ITDG convinced the women that video would be the best way for them to put their case to the outside world. What鈥檚 more, the medium is well suited to their oral storytelling tradition. After a few days of training, they went about making their first video鈥攚riting scripts, shooting footage, editing and cutting. Their film was shown at the British Council building in Nairobi in May 2001. Now the women have been seen the world over, and their work has appeared on TV in Kenya, Europe and on the Internet.
Although those in power have yet to take any real action, the video project has brought the plight of slum-dwellers into the open. The council now invites the group to consultation meetings鈥攁 leap forward for a once-invisible community.
Perhaps the most striking effect of the project has been on the women themselves. 鈥淎t first, people looked down upon our group,鈥� says Mary Wanja Ndungu. 鈥淣ow they give us respect.鈥� The group have great aspirations for the future. 鈥淲e have a work plan up to 2005,鈥� they tell me. 鈥淲e want to start a women鈥檚 centre, a community bank, and highlight the woman鈥檚 perspective on HIV and AIDS.鈥�
On the north-east side of Nairobi is Mathare, a 鈥渕ega-slum鈥�, home to 150,000 people. It鈥檚 an endless, dusty ocean of battered, rusting iron roofs stretching to the horizon. Here, there are no-go areas even for ITDG. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an area that is very suspicious,鈥� says Sammy Keter, acting director of ITDG-East Africa.
We jump over a huge open sewer to meet Sabina Wanjiku Kariuki, a handsome, charismatic woman in her forties, who heads the Mathare women鈥檚 video group. The main problem here is land. Land-grabbers regularly burn down shacks to force residents out. Sitting in Kariuki鈥檚 shack is 73-year-old widow Wairimu Njuguna, whose home has been demolished by the land-grabbers, leaving her and her six children and four grandchildren homeless. She has come to Kariuki for help. 鈥淭he law does not recognise the rights of poor people,鈥漵ays Kariuki.
Kariuki鈥檚 home has become a refuge because of her involvement in muungano, the union of slum dwellers, and the video project. 鈥淪ince we formed muungano, cases of eviction and harassment have reduced dramatically,鈥� she says. 鈥淎lthough we still suffer attacks, the difference now is that we don鈥檛 move away. We rebuild.鈥� Even so, the arson has set them back financially.
Kariuki met Omotto last year and learned about WICT. She called her friends and neighbours together and early last year they started training. The women decided to begin by documenting the plight of single mothers in Mathare. 鈥淭he amazing thing is that none of us had used a camera before,鈥� says Kariuki. 鈥淲e never dreamed they would make such a difference.鈥� When they discovered that they had been shortlisted alongside the Redeemed group for the Betinho prize, the women were ecstatic. 鈥淭here was joy and shouting in Mathare,鈥� Kariuki recalls. 鈥淲e have never seen a project like this which has involved us so closely and left us with so many skills. This is a project done by the people of Mathare for themselves.鈥�
As we tour the area, Kariuki highlights the problems the residents face. A large proportion of the parents in Mathare are single mothers. Some got pregnant as young girls and dropped out of school, some have lost their husbands to disease or violence, some were raped. 鈥淐ulturally, women are still below men in Kenya,鈥� Kariuki explains. Many children have been orphaned by AIDS, while others have seen their parents laid low by alcohol abuse. Walking past a group of men swigging drink, we see one lying on the ground. It鈥檚 early in the afternoon and he is already out cold.
The reaction to the videos from the outside world was dramatic. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 expect women from the slums to have these skills,鈥� says Pauline Wanjiku. The women have witnessed tangible changes in the attitudes of both slum dwellers and outsiders. 鈥淧eople no longer feel helpless,鈥� says Kariuki. 鈥淭he Mama who was evicted came straight to me.鈥� She plans to highlight the woman鈥檚 case in a video. 鈥淲e feel really good,鈥� says Catherine Wanjiru, another member of WICT. 鈥淚t is something you cannot imagine. We feel that we have some power.鈥� The local MP and the area chief are aware of their work and have offered to help.
We return to Kariuki鈥檚 shack to say our goodbyes. The women are justly proud of their videos, which have not only given them more political clout, but also act as a rallying point for slum dwellers struggling for their rights. 鈥淲e want to expand this. We want our own studio,鈥� says Wanjiku. To an outsider like myself, their optimism and determination are remarkable. I ask what spurs them on. 鈥淭his is our home,鈥� they reply. 鈥淲e were born here, we were brought up here. One day we will get our title and build our own homes.鈥�
