Quaker April 2004

Hope For Children in the Slums
By Darcy Drayton

In the Kibera slum live hordes of children. Prior to Kenyan independence in the 1960s, people in the countryside were barred from moving to the cities. Nairobi is now host to thousands of people flocking to the city in search of a better life. Housing is inadequate to accommodate this new influx of humanity. The people cannot afford much, certainly not a modern cinderblock apartment. Wattle and daub, sticks and mud, are cheap and readily available materials. One room after another crowds together, each no more than 10 by 10 feet, sheltering a family of four or more. In Kibera there is one main road for a section of city occupied by nearly one million people. All the other roads have been built on, so desperate is the need for housing. Most dwellings have no water.

There is one latrine for every 40 families. What these paltry facilities do not accommodate is put into plastic bags and flung out the door. Last year I walked through this slum many times. Garbage is the substructure of all paths, ground deep into the dirt and mud. A network of cement drainage ditches slope down the hill to one of the most polluted rivers I have ever seen. The sewage water from the slum has a hard time finding its way around all that has been thrown into these ditches, and in the rainy season they overflow.

The foul water, with no proper bed, may sweep through the shacks looking for a downward path to the river. God gave children an important job, that of playing. But how do children play in such a place? I tell you they do! Rag and plastic bound with string serves as a soccer ball. But one image stands out for me: A woman is standing by the entrance of her home. She is thin, her forearm placed across her brow. Her eyes stare out at nothing I can see. At her feet are two of her smallest children. One is just a baby. They are playing with some small sticks in the water that is trickling by their feet.

As babies will, he puts the stick to his mouth seeking to learn about the world he has been born into. The children who attend the Lindi Friends Primary School live here. Poverty stands in grim watch over families who struggle to provide for their children. Most jobs are casual, which means you are hired only day to day at very low wages. The teachers at the Lindi School state it is not unusual for children to come to school without having eaten breakfast. In Kenya most school children go home for a long lunch break. Most at the Lindi School do not. They have brought no lunch and, more significantly, they have no water since the school has not been able to afford to pipe water in. For many children, their only meal is the one they eat in the evening and, at times, even that is not adequate.

The coveted school uniforms are used and often in bad repair. Many children do not have proper shoes, a real hazard in such an environment. Schools supplies are meager and nothing of the least value can be kept overnight because the wattle, daub and tin school cannot be secured from theft. All the children I met desperately want to go to school. With the election of President Mwai Kibaki last year, the government is trying to provide free primary education for all Kenyan children, but there are not enough schools or trained teachers to do the job. The Kibera Friends Church, with the help of Africa Quaker Vision (AQUAVIS), is trying to raise money to build a school the government will recognize as a proper education facility. This will enable the Lindi Friends Primary School to obtain financial support for certified teacher salaries. Last year, Quakers in New England, New Jersey and Kenya raised money to purchase the necessary long-term lease of land to build this school. The next step is raising funds to construct a permanent school building. The Lindi Friends School building has been designated as the FUM Vacation

Bible School project. A VBS curriculum is available from FUM at 101 Quaker
Hill Drive, Richmond IN 47374; phone (765) 962-7573 or email info@fum.org.
Donations are gratefully accepted at the previous address.Darcy Drayton is a member of Weare (NH) Monthly Meeting of New England Yearly Meeting. Working with Aquavis in Kenya, she carries a concern for Quakers in the Nairobi slum.