Isaacw90
Registered: May 2012
City/Town/Province: Nairobi
Posts: 1
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Did you know of slums? Did you know that Kenya is home to major world’s slums? A slum is a heavily populated area of a city characterized by poverty and poor housing. Poverty-stricken, disease-ridden, and recently ravaged by political turmoil, the lowest depths of human condition can be found in the slums in the capital of Kenya known as Nairobi. Mixed with both their history and their present, the slums of Nairobi represent the common human struggle to survive under very poor living conditions. The formation of slums in Nairobi, Kenya can be traced back to the pre-independence period when the geographical layout was based on the government-sanctioned population segregated into different areas. The City Council of Nairobi lacked the ability to formulate plans to help the occurrences of slums which led to the rapid increase of unbalanced distribution of land to the inhabitants. Many slums were located on unplanned sites that were not suitable for housing, and people experienced high amounts of pollution. Because of employment opportunities, a number of slums sprang up compared to the prior lack of opportunities and resources to make money. Although most of the residents earn a very low income, they are forced to stay in this impoverished area with no other opportunities for stability and growth. In Nairobi city alone, there are approximately 199 slums Mathare being the second largest. Sixty percent of Nairobi’s population is a part of substandard and overcrowded housing settlements. This area is heavily packed with hundreds of thousands of people struggling for their survival. This distribution of land entitles an individual to roughly one meter by one meter of ground space. Streets are heavily polluted with dust, wastes, and soot as if they were covered with dirty gabbages. Mathare slum lack adequate access to trash removal, water, or toilets; thus, these harsh conditions are affecting the lives of the residents in this area. Each and every day, people living in slums must endure the sight of the area they live in called “home.” The supply of water and food in slums is scarce and limited causing many necessities to not be fully met by an underpaid resident. With the need of at least 100 liters of water per day costing 25 shillings for drinking and cleaning, most of their earnings are spent. This makes it even more difficult to meet the needs for one day. Toilets are shared by hundreds of people and with no sewage system; sludge and human waste flows down the streets into nearby streams. The smells in Mathare are always changing but can usually be traced to either charcoal used for cooking or human waste covering the streets. With the absence of any running water system, residents are forced to use contaminated and unsanitary water. People are forced to scavenge through heaps of garbage on either side of the streets for food or other materials that can be used. Even the children scamper through the trash to collect materials of help. Living in deplorable conditions, residents are surrounded by factors that hinder the person’s physical well-being. The limited amount of water they do have is sometimes left sitting for days, therefore, allowing organisms to get into the already contaminated water causing many diseases to arise such as typhoid and cholera. Other common diseases include Malaria, HIV, and Yellow Fever. Children in general suffer about 40 percent of environment related diseases. Despite what seems like the unbearable conditions in Nairobi, the unsanitary, polluted, and disease-ridden slums represent the common human struggle to survive even with limited availability of resources. MasterPeace Kenya under my leadership organizes community services voluntary sessions to clean these areas. The environment is terrible and everyone should take responsibility to improve their areas.
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