Walkabout in Nairobi’s largest slum

My recent visit to Kibera, Kenya made me understand the challenges faced by millions of people living in slums with poor access to affordable, clean and safe drinking water. But as I discovered, there are also pockets of progress. 

Soweto East, one of the 13 villages that make up Kibera, is Nairobi’s largest slum. Named after Johannesburg’s largest township, famous for being the home to Nelson Mandela and other South African freedom fighters, this precinct is situated approximately one kilometre north of the Nairobi Dam. The dam was built in the 1950s to provide water for the entire city, but due to the increasing inflow of wastewater and sewage from heavily polluted rivers and streams, the facility has collapsed over time.

Social activist Aouki Patrick took me on a tour of Kiberia and explained that the Nairobi Dam used to be the only source of water for Kibera’s 300,000 to 400,000 residents.

Patrick, who runs a school for Kibera’s most vulnerable children called The Seed Foundation said: 

“The government doesn’t provide water for our slums”.

In addition to education, the Seed Foundation provides 50 pupils with meals and clean drinking water. The facility also has its own indoor water tank and pit latrine, features that are not common in most schools in the area.

Private vendors

Kibera’s water situation has somewhat improved due to the influx of private vendors and their water pipelines and sales points. However, the set-up is far from perfect. “Many pipes are of inferior quality and they are laid on the surface instead of being buried underground. They therefore get damaged easily, which leads to contamination of drinking water,” Patrick told me as we stepped out of our rickety communal matatutaxi van.

My eyes caught the curious gaze of children sitting across a 50-centimetre wide gutter filled with pungent milky-grey water and lots of waste. Patrick told me that besides stormwater, gutters in Kibera also carry wastewater and often sewage as well. 

“There is no wastewater and sewage infrastructure in Kibera. This water will eventually end up in the river,” he said as we passed a young woman, presumedly the children’s mother.

Expensive and unsafe

Many Kibera residents we spoke to told us that on an average they use two jerrycans of water (see picture below) per person per day for all their cooking, drinking, washing, laundry and cleaning needs. “One jerrycan costs 5 Kenyan Shillings (US$0.05),” said a man who identified himself as George. He works at a local workshop that turns animal bones into jewellery.

With the bulk of the slum’s population living under the poverty line of $1.25 per day, $0.05 is a significant daily expense. “I have three children so this is very expensive,” George said. 

Besides the cost, the main problem with Kibera’s private drinking water supply is the product’s dubious quality, Patrick explained as we disappeared into a side street leading us into an incomprehensible maze of shacks and structures made of corrugated iron, wood and plastic sheeting.

Ten minutes later we arrived at a bridge overlooking one of the local rivers. Over time the water has turned into a graphite-grey emulsion that is largely covered by trash. Like municipal water, waste removal services do not exist here. In the trash are plastic bags, bottles, food containers, old clothes and animal carcasses.

We carried on and crossed another bridge. Oblivious to the dangers and the water’s toxicity, a group of children played at the river’s edge. In the distance I saw a woman emptying a turquoise baby potty into the river. “There are no other options for her”, Patrick said, “There is no proper sewage system in Kibera, besides the few communal blocks. Everything ends up in the river and ultimately in Nairobi Dam.”

My eyes caught a jungle of different coloured plastic pipes near the water’s edge. While most were held up by a large pipe sticking out of the ground, others were dangling frighteningly close to the river’s surface. One of them was squirting water, despite being covered with few layers of tape. This situation repeated itself wherever we went.

These were the pipe leaks that Patrick mentioned earlier. It is, therefore, no surprise cholera is a common health risk in Kibera. According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report from December 2018:

“From January to November 2017, a total of 3,967 laboratory-confirmed and probable cases, including 76 deaths, were reported by the Ministry of Health”.

Glimmer of hope

However, there are pockets of hope. The work of the non-profit Shining Hope for Communities organisation (SHOFCO) is a good example. Founded by Kibera resident Kennedy Odede in 2004, Shining Hope has been working to improve drinking water access in Nairobi’s slums since 2016 by doing things differently from other organisations.

Where most organisations and water vendors make use of under and above the ground systems, SHOFCO has deployed an aerial system of suspended pipes which are connected to bright blue water towers and over a dozen water kiosks. The organisation supplies over 11,000 people with water. “These pipes do not get damaged, cannot be contaminated and save lives,” Patrick said. 

SHOFCO received the 2018 Hilton Humanitarian Prize worth US$2 million in unrestricted funding. The Hilton Foundation President and CEO Peter Laugharn said:

“SHOFCO is a remarkable example of citizen-led change, created by people living in very challenging conditions. As Africa and the world urbanize and more informal settlements are created, SHOFCO provides an inspiring example of local creativity and solutions.”

*Miriam Mannak is a freelance journalist based in South Africa.

There has also been a recent ban of single-use plastics in Kenya. For more info and to view a video about this, read the story A child must play.