To Live in Kenya...
The Republic of Kenya is a country in Eastern Africa, bordering Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the northeast, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest.
Since independence, Kenya has maintained remarkable stability despite changes in its political system and crises in neighbouring countries. Particularly since the re-emergence of multiparty democracy, Kenyans have enjoyed an increased degree of freedom.
A few statistics...
* Out of its 34 million citizens, more than half are thought to be living on less than 1$ per day
* Out of its 15 millions children, 1 million are orphaned or with only one parent
* Nearly 10 million individuals are packed into miniscule ‘tin cans'
within the Nairobi slums...
* On top of it all, 6.1% of the recorded Kenyan population is HIV-positive
(2 million people not including the other thousands that have not been recorded)
The World Bank
http://www.worldbank.org/
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya
The city lies on the Nairobi river. Nairobi is the most populous city in East Africa, with an estimated urban population of between 3 and 4 million.
The Pleasures of Slum Life...
A
slum is a district of a city or town which is usually inhabited by the very poor or socially disadvantaged. Slums can be found in most large cities around the world and are usually characterized by urban blight and by high rates of poverty and unemployment. They tend to be breeding centres for many social problems such as crime, drug addiction and alcoholism, high rates of mental illness, suicide, and despair. In many poor countries they exhibit high rates of disease due to unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and lack of basic health care.
According to the United Nations Centre for Human Settlement (Habitat), Nairobi's slums are overcrowded, with four to six people living in one room. The dwellings are very close to each other; services are basic, while morbidity and mortality rates are high. City authorities say more than 1.6 million (out of Nairobi's estimated population of 3.5 million) live in the slums or 'informal settlements'. Most live below the poverty line - earning less than US$7 a week - according to experts.
NAIROBI..
Slums are not only characterized by the serious lack of basic services, but by substandard housing or illegal and inadequate structures, overcrowding, unhealthy living conditions and hazardous locations, and insecurity of tenure leading to irregular or informal settlements, poverty and social exclusion....
...now imagine children living in those conditions.
A bit of history...
Between 1971 and 1995, the number of slums within the Nairobi divisional boundaries rose from 50 to 134, while the estimated total population of these settlements increased from 167,000 to some 1,886,000 individuals. Today, both natural growth and rural-to-urban migration continue to contribute to the growth of Nairobi’s informal settlements villages.
Almost 60% of the Nairobian population live in slums...
Within the Nairobi slums, the lack of a functioning sanitation and drainage system is perhaps the greatest daily nightmare slum dwellers must cope with. It is from these kinds of slums that the euphemism of the “flying toilets” came into being. Slum dwellers have a habit of defecating into polythene bags and then throwing them into a nearby footpath, or stream. All of this and much more are as a result of the lack of the most basic services – services that we here take for granted. The residents of the Nairobi slums, each day, must endure the sight of filthy narrow alleys, and sludge and human waste from shallow latrines flowing into nearby streams, a situation, as one can imagine, gets much worse during the rainy season. The lack of latrines and poor drainage leads to the swamping of entire neighborhoods with dirty water during these rainy seasons. As a result, there are high incidences of disease like typhoid, malaria and diarrhea.
Kibera is the biggest slum in Africa with 1 million inhabitants
The name "Kibera" is derived from kibra, a Nubian word meaning "forest" or "jungle."
Kibera has residents coming from all the major ethnic backgrounds with some areas being specifically dominated by one tribe. Many are coming from rural areas due to the problems of rural underdevelopment.
Livestock and domesticated animals are all over Kibera. There are pigs, goats, ducks, sheep and dogs. They roam the streets and eat from the garbage piles.
Kibera operates as a city. Over 1 million people reside in Kibera most of whom hold down full time jobs. Affordable housing is not readily available s slums become a necessity.
