Although the Kenyan government does little to encourage film production in the country, a number of NGOs and trusts focus on putting film equipment in the hands of slum dwellers and helping them gain the skills necessary to tell their own stories. Organizations like the Hot Sun Foundation, Slum-TV, and Invisible Cities have trained and nurtured talented youth from Kibera, Mathare, and Korogocho over the years, giving them the opportunity to develop their potential and, through their images, to challenge the accepted vision of what life is like in the slums. Learn more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Fri, 10/05/2012 – 01:00
Muungano wa Wanavijiji, a Kenyan partner of the Slum Dwellers International network, is battling it out in court to protect the residents of Mukuru kwa Reuben slum from being evicted from land they have occupied for more than thirty years. In a landmark court case, a legal team representing Muungano is attempting to sue a series of high-profile politicians — including the ex-president, a presidential aspirant, and prominent entrepreneurs — on behalf of the community. If successful, the case will be one of the first to effectively use the new constitution as backing for a community’s land claims. Read and discuss.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Tue, 09/25/2012 – 01:00
M-PESA, a mobile phone money transfer system that has been operating in Kenya since 2007, allows users to easily deposit, transfer, and withdraw money using a mobile device using SMS technology. Initially set up as a micro-finance service to allow borrowers to easily receive and repay loans, M-PESA quickly morphed into the main ‘urban banking’ system for Kenya’s poor — who have no access to Kenya’s mainstream banks — as the only requirements for registration are an ID card and a mobile phone. It is now normal to find M-PESA outlets in even the most remote places, including the Maasai villages in the Mara or in the Samburu communities around Lake Turkana. Read more.
Submitted by Nairobi — Fri, 09/21/2012 – 01:00
The Mukuru Recycling Centre (MRC), in operation since 1991, is run by a cooperative based in Korogocho, an East Nairobi informal settlement that borders on the Dandora dumpsite. The Centre is composed by four groups of waste-pickers, whose livelihoods are all inextricably connected to the nearby dumpsite. The aim is not only to create economic opportunities for Korogocho residents, but also to help in the rehabilitation of scavengers — who, having spent their entire lives working knee-deep in garbage, have little sense of self-worth, nor prospects for a better future. Read and discuss.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Mon, 08/27/2012 – 01:00
The Kibera School for Girls, situated in the heart of Nairobi’s largest informal settlement, was founded in 2009 by Kibera-born Kennedy Odede to address what he saw as a fundamental gender imbalance between the opportunities available to boys growing up in the slums and those available to girls. “I could not stay silent while I saw such wasted potential,” says Odede. “This is why I decided to found Shining Hope for Communities — because I felt that by tackling women’s problems, I would also help to address poverty in the slums in a more effective way.” Read and discuss.
Submitted by Nairobi — Sun, 08/19/2012 – 01:00
Miriam Ombiwa is a 26-year-old Mathare resident who makes a living by working in a small laundry in Eastleigh, a neighborhood close to Mathare. Miriam lives in a single-room shack with her husband and three children. The shack has mud walls and floors and a mabati (corrugated iron) roof. Miriam took some time to describe to us her daily routine and how she deals with the lack of access to water that is a standard feature of life in a Nairobi slum. Learn more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Sun, 08/05/2012 – 01:00
Getting medical information can be a challenging process for impoverished people with neither computer access nor efficient national health care. To help solve this puzzle, clinics are trying to harness their limited resources to build a technology to tackle the problem. In Nairobi, a pilot project was launched, first in an informal settlement in Dagoretti constituency, and more recently in Kibera. The project’s name is M-chanjo, and its aim is to harness the power of mobile phones — ownership of which has increased tenfold over the last ten years in Kenya — to keep patients up to date on their upcoming inoculations and on any outreach programs that are due to take place in the area. Learn more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Sun, 07/29/2012 – 01:00
The Development Planning Unity (DPU) — a center for academic teaching, practical training, research and consultancy in the field of urban development — takes a different approach to closing the gap between research and practice. In a recent series of workshops in Salvador da Bahia in Brazil and Mathare slum in Nairobi, the DPU joined NGO Architecture sans Frontières UK to create environments where communities could imagine and articulate their ideal living arrangements, then translate this ideal into action through negotiations with local government. Dr. Alex Frediani, DPU lecturer and Change by Design program coordinator, spoke with us about the project’s implications for policy and practice. Read more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Sat, 07/21/2012 – 01:00
Kenya Vision 2030, a Kenyan government plan based on the Millennium Declaration development targets, pledges to improve the quality of life for all Kenyans, including residents of Nairobi’s slums. To implement it, the government partnered with UN-HABITAT to create the Kenya Slum Upgrading Program, whose flagship project was launched in Kibera’s Soweto village. But despite its noble goals — secure tenure, improved housing, enhanced income and infrastructure — there was a problem: fully half of its intended beneficiaries wound up being priced out of the project. What went wrong? Read more.
Submitted by Katy Fentress — Tue, 07/17/2012 – 01:00
The absence of financial institutions in Nairobi’s slums presents serious obstacles to residents seeking access to financial services. But in places like Kibera, the introduction of agent banking — an innovative delivery channel that seeks to bring financial services much closer to poor people — presents a promising step forward. Read more.
Submitted by Nairobi — Fri, 07/13/2012 – 01:00
That food goes to waste in the Northern Hemisphere is common knowledge. Grocery stores, bakeries, supermarkets, all throw out large quantities of edible goods simply because health and safety rules dictate that they are past their sell-by date. Countries like Kenya, with increasingly affluent middle classes that shop in malls and eat in restaurants, have jumped on to the waste bandwagon and now also produce large quantities of food that ends up rotting in its cities’ extended dumpsites. Read more or join the discussion.
Without the ongoing support of their rural families, migrants in Nairobi slums would have little chance of making it. Family networks provide a crucial backbone on which migrants can rely on in order to be able to survive in the city and save money for their future. Grandparents and extended family contribute in the upbringing of children while parents seek urban work. The older generations act as custodians of wealth, overseeing how remittances are invested and providing informal insurance/retirement schemes to safeguard their descendants’ future. Read more or join the discussion.
The Kenyan federation of slum dwellers, Muungano wa Wanavijiji has succeeded in firmly establishing itself as an force to be reckoned with on the national arena. As their domestic influence grows, they have also begun to focus on strengthening ties with similar groups in the region and beyond. Read more or join the discussion.
The 2007 Nairobi World Social Forum (WSF) was a controversial event because while it brought social activists together to discuss urban poverty, impoverished Kenyans were effectively excluded from the function due to the high cost of attending. As a result of the controversy, many WSF participants decided to see for themselves how things worked in the slums. This resulted in a flurry of tours around Kibera, Nairobi’s biggest informal settlement, effectively laying the groundwork for the creation of a slum tourism infrastructure in the area. Read more or join the discussion.
The fact that developed countries have been using Africa as a dumping ground for electronic waste is an old story. Under the guise of “charitable donations,” tons of e-products of dubious worth — refrigerators, washing machines, computers, cellular phones, TVs (the list goes on) — are disposed of on the continent every year. Kenya is no exception to this trend: it is estimated that every day the port of Mombasa receives thousands of electronic devices. These subsequently get sold on to businesses and other institutions, but their shelf life is approaching its end and most of this equipment lives out its final years in the country and is subsequently not adequately disposed of. Read more or join the discussion.
Nairobi is not the city it was five years ago. The capital of Kenya is transforming its skyline: high-rises are mushrooming up and away from the Central Business District in a quest to find unoccupied space and expand. Accompanying this vertical climb is the ongoing construction of a network of roads and bypasses, aimed to make Nairobi a more fluid and modern city. Some of the key roads that are now nearing completion have been under construction for years. This has opened up an opportunity for street vendors to create informal markets and stalls from which to provide the workforce with food and refreshments. Read more or join the discussion.
When talking about foreign investment in Africa, China springs to mind first. Chinese malls, Chinese highways, Chinese bridges. But Chinese housing? Not so much. Because like so many other investors, the Chinese failed to link the target market with the much-needed quality social housing. On a continent where mortgage markets barely exceed 5% of GDP (compare that with 40% of GDP in North America and a whopping 80% in Denmark!), owning a house is merely a dream for most — a pretty far-off dream. Read more.
A short man wearing a hooded coat pushes back the door to a small shed. Lying by the door, his closed eyes caught in the path of a dusty ray of sunshine, a young man of about twenty stirs. The man lying next to him scratches his arm and wraps himself tighter in his jacket. Next to them another four men are stretched out on the packed earth, unaware of the intrusion. This is Mathare and these men, like many others in shacks on either side of them, have rented a piece of floor to have a place to rest for the night. They might not have blankets and a mattress to lie on, but the warmth of their bodies is enough to stave off the worst of the cold. Read more or join the discussion.
Refugee Women of Somali origin living in Eastleigh – a neighborhood in the east of Nairobi that over the course of a few decades became a major stronghold for Somalis escaping the war back home, do not have the luxury of choosing how to live their lives in the same way their male counterparts do. Read more or join the discussion.
This project is co-funded by the Bangladesh Government, the Asian Development Bank, the Department for International Development, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The first phase of this project (2001-2007) was implemented in 32 districts, and the second phase (2007-2013) is being implemented in 29 additional districts (there are a total of 64 districts in Bangladesh). The chief aim of this project is to alleviate poverty by creating self-employment opportunities for adolescents and adults who have basic literacy skills, by linking literacy and livelihood interventions. Learning centers are established near the target communities, and a number of NGOs are appointed to execute the program. There are equal numbers of male and female learners in the learning centers, ranging from age 11 to age 45, and the two genders are trained separately. The literacy skills of the participants are improved using the grade I to III Non Formal Education curriculum so that the participants can use their literacy skills to perform tasks like keeping track of the family’s income and communicating effectively. Moreover, discussion sessions raise awareness about topics like health, nutrition, education, drug abuse, gender discrimination, women’s empowerment, environmental protection, and so on. The program also provides a variety of trade training, on the basis of existing and future demand from the local labor and industrial market, in order to improve the socio-economic condition of the participants. These trainings include radio, television and mobile phone servicing, house wiring, welding, tailoring, and embroidery. The program also partners with different companies, organizations, small and micro-enterprises to create employment, loans, and other opportunities to earn money for the participants. Although the project officially ends in 2013, measures have been taken to make this project sustainable beyond the project period. The Sub-district Non Formal Education Committee has been given the responsibility to maintain the learning centers after the completion of the project, by using local primary schools and organizations. If the committee maintains the centers properly, the benefits of the project have a good chance of continuing.
According to a report on phase I, this project has been successful in ensuring large-scale participation, since it provides life skills training in response to the needs of the society. However, some learners gradually lost interest in the program because the project does not provide direct financial rewards. Male participants were especially unwilling to devote time to the sessions. Moreover, teachers and facilitators were not well paid, which resulted in a lack of enthusiasm about the project. Therefore, to improve the project’s performance in future, it should raise awareness about the benefits that it can bring. Additionally, significant financial rewards for both participants and teachers would help in making the project more effective.
Makoko’s slum clearance, part of the city’s effort to make the city safer and more modernized, illustrates the importance of considering the social impact of urban planning and growth projects. The economic and social effects of this slum clearance on the communities are grave: residents become displaced, lose their shelter, sense of safety, and livelihood. Other initiatives in Makoko have been more successful: the innovative floating school project plans to make education more accessible to slum residents.
Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Brazil has the largest number of domestic workers in the world. According to a recent report from the International Labor Organization, there are about 7.2 million domestic workers in Brazil, 93 percent of whom are women. The Brazilian government reports that 20 percent of these workers are formal, meaning that they are properly registered and have access to certain benefits, like sick leave. The remaining 80 percent lack proper registration and the accompanying benefits.
Doméstica Legal (“Legal Domestic Worker”) is a company created in 2004 in Rio de Janeiro that works at the local level to support domestic workers. The organization provides assistance to employers with regard to the legal requirements of hiring and compensating domestic workers. The company offers a comprehensive web site and also provides assistance to domestic workers so that they can learn about their rights and responsibilities, as well as clarify questions on the importance of having signed contracts with their employers. In 2009, Doméstica Legal created a nonprofit branch to support the creation of regulatory framework in favor of domestic workers nationwide, with the aim of expanding the recognition and the fair compensation of the many Brazilian women working as domestic workers.
Segundo estudos recentes sobre programas de melhoria de bairros no Brasil, existem duas etapas chave na fase inicial do melhoramento; a primeira é a definição das comunidades que serão intervindas assegurando que sejam apropriadas ambiental e economicamente para melhora continua; a segunda é o aprofundamento das condições de vida dos bairros que serão intervindos para assegurar que suas necessidades sejam tomadas em conta.
Two architects, P.K. Das from Mumbai and Paul Downton from Adelaide, have recently written about public space on The Nature of Cities. Both essays, from very different angles, are about the fundamental principles around which public spaces should be planned, organized, and motivated in human landscapes such as cities. If a single word suffices, that word must be “democratic”. Read more.
A lot of recent discussion around urban planning, resilience, and sustainable cities has included ideas about community engagement. How do we get the public more engaged in urban planning in ways that are effective – that honors good design, evidence-based science and community desires? Having decided that community engagement is a good idea doesn’t make it easy. My friend and colleague PK Das of Mumbai has been involved in a lot of public engagement around the expansion of open spaces, and he said something insightful. One the one hand, plopping a big plan with an elaborate drawing down in front of an audience is not exactly engagement – in fact, it can easily be a buzz kill. On the other hand, when I asked Das what for him was the biggest difficulty, he responded: “As a professional, it is resisting the temptation to try an control the proceedings; I need to relax and be a participant.” So there it is. How can we meld expert opinion (and science) and non-expert opinion (just as valid, but different) in a way that honors and includes both? Read more.
Many of us think of urban graffiti as a nuisance, as an illegality, as a challenge to authority. Exactly, especially the last one. And it is also a form a communication, sometimes the only form available to people who aren’t so well represented in the media. Alex Alonso wrote an interesting piece on urban graffiti and its typologies, and discussed how graffiti can provide insight into societal attitudes and perceptions. Graffiti includes political commentary, personal or ‘existential’ messages, gang-related territorial demarcation, simple ‘tags’, elegant ‘piecing’ where tags or names are elaborate, and larger works that, more obviously like art, that combine comment with an clear aesthetic. Read more.
Walkability and green spaces are not the same thing, but it feels as if they ought to be related somehow. This is because walkability in its most basic form is more than some version of “is possible to walk there”, but also “is possible and pleasant to walk there.” Or is it? One published definition of walkability, for example, is: “The extent to which the built environment is friendly to the presence of people living, shopping, visiting, enjoying or spending time in an area.” (from Walkability Scoping Paper, 2005). All the action is in the word “friendly”, and there’s a lot of unpacking to do. Read more.
I had the good fortune of walking along the Bandra waterfront in Mumbai last week with architect-activist P.K. Das, environmental journalist and neighborhood leader Darryl D’Monte, and Bandra Fort steward Arup Sarbadhikary. They were showing me some of the fruits of a long-standing effort to create more open space in Mumbai, where people can enjoy the outdoors and one of Mumbai’s assets: its coastline. Read more.
We don’t seem to live in an age of reading. But we do live in an age of communication. Ideas, images, manifestos, advertisements, loud TV, tweets and all manner of media bombard us all on a minute-to-minute basis. Put that together with one thing we know from evolving educational theory: each person learns and perceives messages a little differently, and diverse modes of delivering the same information are more likely to reach a wider range of people. What we really want is to get our messages out, to inform, to educate, to create dialog — with whatever media reach people. And this probably means delivering messages and ideas in diverse media: Tweets at 140 characters; Facebook at a few sentences; essays and blogs, books, radio, exhibits, and so on. Read more.
Keitaro Ito, in his recent essay called “Growing Places” at The Nature of Cities, poses the following question: where will children learn about nature? This is especially relevant in highly urbanized (and often fast growing) cities that are rapidly losing their green spaces, or perhaps never had much nature to begin with. This is the case in much of Japan, where Ito lives and works. There has been so much construction that much of the green space in cities has been lost. In such places, where will children learn about nature? Where will they play together in living spaces? How will they grow up to appreciate the critical role nature has in resilient, sustainable and livable cities? Read more.
Everyone thinks resilience is a good idea. The problem is figuring out what we actually mean when we say it. That is, how do we take urban resilience beyond the realm of metaphor and into the realm of everyday planning and decision-making — the stuff with which we can build cities? Read more.
O Brasil está vivendo um delicado momento com o aumento da violência e com uma sensação generalizada de falta de segurança. Manchetes se repetem em todo o país – roubos, assassinatos, violência no trânsito. Se por um lado, temos um Governo ineficiente sem a força necessária para combater essa insegurança; por outro, vemos uma sociedade impaciente e começando a fazer “justiça com as próprias mãos”. Leia mais.
As manifestações promovidas pelos brasileiros no mês de Junho repercutiram em todo o mundo. “Acordamos” diziam os cartazes. Com o desejo de ter maior participação nas decisões de políticas públicas e contra algumas medidas realizadas no âmbito municipal, estadual e nacional, os jovens mostraram sua indignação com o poder público brasileiro. Leia mais.
Researchers and urbanists from leading Western institutions have proposed interventions — both large and small — for “righting” India’s megacities. In Mumbai, however, city planners have looked east for models, with the notion that cities with similar issues can provide more appropriate solutions. The idea of “Shanghai-ing” Mumbai has been one of the most talked-about examples, but more effort is being made all over the country to exchange across more local borders. Read more or join the discussion.
One of Mumbai’s best-known architects, PK Das, has used his profession as an instrument for social change. Arriving in the city in 1972 to study architecture, he soon thereafter got involved in movements for slum dwellers and against corruption. Forty years later, Das continues to experiment with the intersection of his craft and his conscience. Mumbai, he says, is his workshop for it all. “It’s where I shape and reshape ideas. This city allows that kind of exchange,” says Das. “What I argue is that planning and architecture are fabulous democratic instruments for social change.” Read more or join the discussion.
Anyone comparing countries can quickly conclude there isn’t a direct fixed relationship between economic growth and quality public services. Per capita income can be terrible while total national income is high. Economic growth can be high yet maintain widespread inequality. This is not a sustainable way to run a country, yet this is how things are and have always been done in Brazil, the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery and today the world’s 7th largest economy where 21% of the population is still under the poverty line. Brazil today is 106th in GDP per capita. We also rank among the worst in inequality, at number 17, although this is a significant improvement over the 1st place position we occupied two decades ago. Read more.
The issue of nutrition is essential in the developing world: malnutrition, undernutrition, and unsafe food are pervasive problems for the residents of informal, impoverished, and marginalized communities, the consequence of poverty and of high food prices. Examples from Jakarta and Bangalore demonstrate solutions to child malnutrition and unhealthy snack options. Soup kitchens in Mexico City feed the hungry and skills trainings in Dhaka help the poor pull themselves out of poverty and hunger, while in Rio de Janeiro, food is used as a way to promote the positive aspects of favelas. Read on to learn more, and then join the discussion below.
Tidak seperti di negara-negara maju, anak sekolah di Indonesia umumnya tidak mendapatkan makan siang disekolah melainkan lebih sering membeli jajanan (street snack). Padahal usia anak sekolah adalah usia yang memerlukan gizi dan nutrisi yang cukup untuk tumbuh dan berkembang. Sudah menjadi rahasia umum bahwa jajanan di sekolah bukanlah makanan sehat, bahkan cenderung berbahaya bagi kesehatan, namun tetap saja jajanan ini digemari dan dibeli hampir setiap hari oleh anak-anak sekolah tersebut. Jajanan yang digemari anak-anak ini umumnya berwarna mencolok, rasanya gurih atau sangat manis dan harganya murah. Namun sayangnya para pedagang kurang memperhatikan kebersihan dan kandungan nutrisi dalam jajanan-jajanan tersebut, sehingga tidak jarang mereka menggunakan zat-zat yang berbahaya seperti pewarna pakaian, MSG dan pengawet.
Nearly a decade later, little has changed. A recent study of government school children in the Azad Nagar slum of Bangalore reveals a “high prevalence” of malnutrition among the school-goers. “The children studying in government schools do not realize their full potential for growth and they are considerably more malnourished than their counterparts of private schools,” says the report. Hunger and malnutrition not only impact the growth and physical health of the children, but their future is also at stake. With little extra energy to focus, school grades slip and learning becomes nearly impossible.
অ্যাসোসিয়েশন ফর সোশিও-একনোমিক অ্যাডভাঞ্চমেন্ট ইন বাংলাদেশ (ASEAB) নামে একটি সংস্থা প্রতিষ্ঠার ১৯৯৩ সাল থেকে সমাজের কোণঠাসা জনগণ বিশেষ করে বস্তিবাসীদের উন্নয়ন ও ক্ষমতায়নের জন্য কাজ করে যাচ্ছে। তাদের বিভিন্ন প্রোগ্রামের মধ্যে “বস্তি ও নগরায়ন প্রকল্প” একটি। তাদের এই প্রকল্পের কেন্দ্রবিন্দু হচ্ছে বস্তিবাসীদের জন্য পুষ্টি ও খাদ্য নিরাপত্তা। ২০০১ সাল থেকে, ASEAB ঢাকার বস্তি এলাকার ১৫০ পরিবারের মধ্যে খাদ্য নিশ্চিতকরণ ও পুষ্টি নিরাপত্তার জন্য বিভিন্ন ধরণের সেবা সরবরাহ করে যাচ্ছে। এই প্রকল্পের আওতায় রয়েছে ৬০০ বস্তিবাসীকে ক্ষুদ্রঋণ প্রদানের মাধ্যমে আয় উৎপাদনের প্রশিক্ষণ দেওয়া যেমন সেলাই, ব্লক-বাটিক, মোমবাতি, এবং ফাস্ট ফুড তৈরির কাজ শেখানো।
Tendo a intenção de promover lugares com comida boa e gostosa ao alcance de todos, especialmente nos bairros de baixa renda, o livro recomenda os melhores 22 lugares donde comer nas favelas cariocas, incluindo restaurantes, bares e terraços improvisados. A equipe criadora do livro visitou por vários meses mais de 100 estabelecimentos em oito favelas incluindo o Complexo do Alemão, Morro da Providência, Santa Marta, Tabajaras, Chapéu Mangueira, Vidigal, Rocinha, e o Morro dos Prazeres.
As recomendações do Guia Gastronômica incluem lugares como Fino Paladar, um restaurante na Ladeira dos Tabajaras em Botafogo, que serve um cardápio bastante variado desde picanha asada até bocalão ao forno. Outro estabelecimento destacado é Carnes Exóticas do Glimário, um restaurante na Rocinha, uma das maiores favelas cariocas, especializado em carnes exóticas, como pato e coelho, que serve pratos como avestruz com ervas, arroz de açafrão e salada de palmito. Todos estes lugares referidos pelo livro servem porções bem generosas, a preços raçoáveis.
Diversos actores implementan alternativas de solución para dar acceso a la población más pobre a la alimentación. Uno de ellos es la asociación civil Comer y Crecer, cuyo objetivo es proporcionarles a los niños en pobreza extrema una alimentación balanceada para que puedan tener un desarrollo físico, intelectual y emocional adecuado para su edad. Desempeñan su labor por medio de dos comedores en donde más de 400 niños acuden una vez al día por una comida completa y balanceada que cubre los requerimientos del 80 por ciento de la ingesta diaria recomendada. Para la operación, Comer y Crecer depende de los donativos y patrocinios con los que cubren los costos; así mismo, una gran parte de la labor se debe al voluntariado de personas que están en contacto con los niños para transmitirles valores y hábitos de higiene y limpieza durante la comida.
Otra de las estrategias que brindan acceso a la alimentación es a través del banco de alimentos Dame Para Ayudar A.C., miembro de la Asociación Mexicana de Banco de Alimentos, que implementa un modelo de gestión motivando a la solidaridad de las empresas y organizaciones (públicas, privadas y sociales) para rescatar los alimentos que se desperdician y distribuirlos entre comunidades marginadas. De acuerdo a Antonio Velasco, la operación del banco de alimentos es “a través de buscar fuentes de alimentos sanos que son susceptibles de ser donados; aquellos, por ejemplo, que pierden su vida en anaquel, que por la proximidad de su fecha de caducidad son retirados del puntos de venta, pero que se encuentran en buen estado y son comestibles.” Los beneficiarios son seleccionados a través de un estudio socioeconómico y adquieren los alimentos al 10 por ciento de costo del valor en el mercado, el cual cubre los gastos de operación de la recolecta y distribución; para los beneficiarios que no pueden cubrir el costo económico, lo cubren a través de su trabajo durante un día.