On the 1st of July 2012, Global Voices teamed up with Map Kibera, a citizen media project which maps some of Africa’s largest slums in Nairobi, Kenya. This story is about Mathare, one of Nairobi’s shanty towns, which used to be a rock mine.
24-year-old Ronald “Roy” Odhiambo introduces himself as a mapper as he walks through piles of rubbish and human waste, past flimsy, make-shift shelters made of plywood and corrugated metal that comprise his neighbourhood; Mathare.
Like many of Mathare’s slum dwellers, Roy displays remarkable resilience. His father abandoned him, when he was just a small child. He lives in a tiny shack from which he risks eviction at any point. But he says, he would not want to see these squalid and crowded settlements demolished. Instead he calls for the government’s recognition and assistance.
The city lacks decent and affordable housing. Squatters or slum lords put up shacks on land that no one else wants to develop, like the abandoned quarry which Mathare is constructed on. Mathare was a blank spot on the map until December 2010, when Roy and a group of young people created the first digital map of their own community.
Mathare is a self-contained city with little official recognition
Mathare is bustling with butcher shops, shoe stores, pharmacies and restaurants, yet it operates with little official recognition or assistance. The roads are riddled with potholes and there is a lack of basic government services such as:
- Waste management
- Water supply network
- Electricity
Roy is not a legal occupant of his home, although he pays rent – money that most likely end up in the pockets of corrupt politicians, who enjoy a good profit from a minimal investment.
There is a key difference between slums in Kenya and slums in Europe. In Denmark, people use the word “slum” to refer to deteriorating inner city tenements or abandoned rural district villages. But in Kenya and in other developing countries, “slums” are more often crowded, illegal settlements.
Children are everywhere in Mathare
Most slum dwellers are young like Roy. They are being socialized in this very hostile environment and some of them become very angry, so slums are also breeding grounds for anti-social behavior.
Roy keeps himself busy with projects like “Map Mathare” that aim to improve life in the community by providing credible and useful information. An example is the mapping and blogging about the need for sanitation systems. Roy documents how human waste spills into the water people drink and contaminates the food they eat.
Mathare is surrounded by rich people
Nairobi’s rich people hire slum dwellers as maids, security guards and drivers.
Not far away, workers pound, file and solder metal into furniture. Elsewhere, young men with cracked, dirt-caked hands sort garbage for recycling.
Slums in Nairobi are booming for reasons that many countries share, like poverty and war, which push people from the countryside into the cities. If nations don’t ensure affordable urban housing and deal with urban poverty, social unrest will increase worldwide.
