Slumdog Millionaire II

On Friday I went to Kibera, one of the largest slums in the world. I was there to meet David Kitavi, director of the Ushirika Children’s Centre, and his colleague James who would show me around.

The morning I spent with James was so interesting I even began to take notes, some of which I’ve written up here. Note: apart from the most cursory of Wikipedia searches, I haven’t verified anything he told me, but I can vouch that he sounded terribly convincing at the time.

Within Kibera there are 13 distinct ‘villages’, separated today by the slightest of roads and streams. The total population of Kibera is almost always a number plucked out of the air. Guesstimates put it at 1 million people, though others say even 1.5 or 2 million isn’t inconceivable. By contrast, a recent official government census claimed that the total population is only 150-200,000 people.

Presumably not wanting to encourage people to live there, the Kenyan government doesn’t recognise Kibera and does not provide any public service whatsoever to its inhabitants. Until, of course, election time comes and they come looking for votes. Or until they need to use Kibera to encourage the drawing out of aid money from foreign governments. Perfectly reasonable.

Kibera started life following WWII when the then government set aside an area of forest to the south west of Nairobi for the Nubians who had served the Allied Forces during the war. “Kibra” is the Nubian word for ‘forest’, though today the trees have been replaced by a jungle of iron corrugated homes and electricity pylons.

The land was only provided on a temporary basis while the government promised to construct more permanent housing elsewhere. During the first decades following independence, however, there was a huge influx of people coming to Nairobi who needed somewhere to stay. The post-independence government quickly prohibited the erection of permanent housing but the settlers ignored them and semi-permanent homes began to appear regardless. The cheap rents offered by the first landlords attracted more people and settlers soon began to establish themselves across the different, expanding villages among the fast-disappearing forest.

Following a massive population increase in Kibera during the ‘90s, a group of youths decided that they needed to protect an area for themselves to play sports. They chose an area in their village and declared it to be for their use. When developers tried to build on the land, they would come at night and tear down anything that had been put up. Soon enough they were left undisturbed.

The sports attracted young people from across the local area and the older youths decided to begin teaching the younger ones. Before long an informal education system was begun, leading eventually to referrals to get into proper primary schools (note: primary education was not free under the dictatorship of Daniel Arap Moi).

With support from the local community and the parents of the boys and girls they were helping, a group of 5 young people managed to open their own primary school in Laini Saba and named it Ushirika, which means ‘coming together’ or ‘cooperation’, a name chosen to emphasise the importance of the whole community’s involvement in the education of children.

Today, alongside the primary school which specifically targets children from dysfunctional families, there is also a youth development programme and a women’s empowerment project.

This latter is essentially a group loans scheme for which, James explained, the participants must pass through 5 stages of training before they can begin saving:

1. Individual Self-Screening

2. Group Formation

3. Group Fund + Development

4. Constitution (every group writes its own)

5. Record-Keeping

There are currently 755 women and 107 men who are involved in the scheme. I was told that an incredible 1.5m Kenyan shillings were saved during 2010 between all participants across four Kiberan villages.

Not every microfinance scheme has this kind of success, nor does every group within this project always return savings. Even so, this project just seemed to work. I suspect it’s because of the goodwill and support built up by the fact that the development was begun by local young people and has grown organically from within the community. ‘These are our brothers and sisters,’ James points out, proudly. ‘We’re not coming from outside.’

I also found it telling that the centre is completely secular, apolitical and non-tribalist. It has its own values by which is lives, symbolised by the word CHARIOT: Commitment, Honesty, Accountability, Respect, Integrity, Openness and Teamwork.

All in all, I was greatly impressed by what has been and continues to be developed at Ushirika thanks to the initiative of the local people. People taking matters into their own hands to benefit their community and actively not wanting governmental support: what better example of his Big Society could David Cameron wish for?