Visit to the Slums of Nairobi

Driving from central Nairobi, the cosmopolitan hub of East Africa, to Huruma one of the largest slums in the surrounding area, is like a journey back into time. It was only a 10km drive but the scenery progressively deteriorates from high-rise buildings, to the less flashy two story stores of the bustling Somali neighborhood, Eastliegh, to the corrugated tin collage that is Huruma; from smooth, paved roads to an array of potholes that only a skilled driver can zigzag through and avoid serious damage to his car.

My supervisor thought it would be a good idea for me to see the other side of Nairobi and to look into ways that IRC could engage with urban slum dwellers. So I was off to Huruma to meet and speak with a community organizer who helped found a local NGO known as the Realtiy Tested Youth Project. This Organization started from a modest three room building donated by the French Embassy and has developed into perhaps the most reputable and resourceful organizations in Huruma and Mathare (a neighboring slum).

The key to RTYP’s success in Huruma is mobilization and coordination. “I have about 1,000 cell-phone numbers,” said S. the community organizer who showed me around, “If we’re not seeing the money that the government promised to invest in the community, we can march up there today.”

For about 500 Ksh a year, RTYP offers membership to community based organizations. Currently, over 150 CBOs have registerd with RTYP and receive valuable support including, educational and vocational training, connections with other NGOs community groups and access to grants/funds that RTYP has available from donors—in a word, RTYP provides people with the basic skills and resources to pull themselves out of poverty and sustain themselves financially over the long-run.
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“We don’t like to be told we’re poor; we’re not poor. How can we be poor when we have 5 commercial banks surrounding us? There are many opportunities here, what we need is coordination,” said S. Hearing these words struck me with a new perspective. Humanitarian work always seemed to revolved around the idea that there are those in desperate need and it is our obligation to help them. But I began to question if the way in which NGOs and donor governments interact with communities such as Huruma really accomplishes the goals of development. Reinforcing the idea that people are needy and lack development, by providing them an occasional handout of humanitarian relief/assistance, is ultimately meaningless in terms of economic empowerment and sustainability.

Going to Huruma was an extraordinary experience; just remarkable. What struck me the most is how people who have very little are able to make ends meet by being a little innovative and working diligently. There is this despicable misconception that people live in poverty because they fail to work hard. What I saw in Huruma completely contradicts this idea. Poverty is primarily due to lack of opportunities rather than the lack of effort. Poor people are capable of sustaining themselves if they are given the basic opportunities to excel.

I heard profound stories from S. who had been working in Huruma since 2004. Stories about women seeking shelter from sexual abuse from OLF soldiers; children working as child-labors in the butcheries who have never, left the neighborhood, let alone seen downtown Nairobi; porters who come to the center so they are able to take a shower once a week and have some porridge. But there were also hopeful stories—people starting enterprises, such as an urban farming scheme to sell fresh vegetables in the slums, a garbage collection initiative sustained by contributions made by community members, cultural dance groups that have performed in places as far away as South Africa….

One encounter stands out the most in my memory. There was a man I met in Huruma belonging to the Borana tribe of southern Ethiopia (although he claimed to be from Moyale, Kenya as most unregistered Ethiopian slum-dwellers do).We spoke for a while, I tried to converse with him in my limited Amharic. This gentleman owns one of six butcheries belonging to a cooperative of Borana goat-herding families. On any given day, he boasted of selling about 4,000 goats and being left with an abundant supply of goat hides. Now, he is hoping to expand his business by working with a Chinese company who is willing to buy the hides for Ksh 120 a piece. Of course the Chinese will make a tremendous profit by processing the hides into leather in their own factories and selling/exporting them at an inflated price. For 1,000,000 USD, the cooperative of Borana families would be able to build and operate their own leather-processing factory in Huruma. They would be able to keep the profit for themselves and, at the same time, bring employment into the slum. These are the kinds of opportunity, that humanitarian organizations should be investing in…building infrastructure, providing training, and supporting income-generating, sustainable projects, not a simple handout. S., I think, was right.