Life in the slum

Pamella Akwede from Kibera slum shares her experience of living in an informal settlement in Kenya with the Holy Father Pope Francis during his meeting with the poor at St Joseph the Worker Kangemi-Nairobi.

Below is Pamella’s testimony

 

LIVING IN INFORMAL SETTLEMENT

Your Holiness, Pope Francis, Our Bishops, Government Representatives, visiting dignitaries, Members of the Kangemi community, fellow Kenyans,
 
In the beginning,

God created the world and saw that it was beautiful. He created man in His own image and likeness and asked him to take care of the earth. However, because of human weakness, man failed to obey this call and fell. This affected God’s true love for man and we have now classed ourselves as the rich, middle class and poor.

Your Holiness, allow me to share with you my experience living in an informal settlement in Kenya. I am proud of living in an informal settlement which I call home. We hope and dream that slum upgrading will NOT be politicized and will combine security of tenure with shelter and service provision, and be beneficial to us all.

According to the UN Habitat, residents of Nairobi’s informal settlements constitute 55% of the city’s population yet we are crowded on 5% of the total land area. This can be attributed to failure by the state to provide for low-cost housing for the poor, leading to absentee landlords taking advantage of the poor in these settlements by building temporary structures not conducive for human settlement and charging high rates for them. As a result, thousands of residents have encroached on unoccupied parcels of land, including public utility land, where they have put up semi-permanent structures.

People in informal settlements live together as family, in unity and solidarity. This is evident during different celebrations such the birth of a child, marriages/weddings and during death. We see communities practicing their fundamental cultures with different ethnic groups sharing and participating as one unit.

A resident of any informal settlement survives on less than a dollar a day, but is able to access fresh agricultural produce from the market all the way from the rural areas. Actually, one can get their stomach full on a cup of tea and doughnut at only Kshs 20 (USD 0.19).

Majority of the residents in informal settlements are casual labourers at companies in the industrial areas usually adjacent to the slums. Although these companies generate high revenues and the Government benefits through taxes, the labourers are not adequately compensated. If you take a walk in any informal settlement, the resilience of the people will shock you. The people are so entrepreneurial, which can be seen from the huge number of small-scale businesses that they run.

Your Holiness, we cannot ignore the efforts of the Government in providing security, but a lot still needs to be done in informal settlements, with security still a big challenge. Police services are insufficient.

We are happy with the Government’s free primary education policy, but this is still a challenge since we do not have adequate public schools to accommodate all slum children. Here, private schools charge very high fees which most of us cannot afford.

Moreover, informal settlements in Kenya have poor health and sanitation services, whose provision has been taken over by private entities and/or NGOs or individuals. Private health centres often lack trained personnel, with many of them run by quacks.

Your Holiness, water is a basic human right and access to quality water is a responsibility of any Government to her citizens. People living in informal settlements in Kenya have no access to water, which is often rationed, of poor quality and unsafe for drinking. There are occasional outbreaks of Cholera, especially early this year.

Your Holiness, political machination is common in our settlements; leaders take advantage of poverty stricken youths and tribal composition to gain political mileage. Fortunately, people are aware of this strategy and have embraced their different ethnic backgrounds. The Catholic Church prides itself in being at the forefront in serving the communities in informal settlements, by not only handling matters of faith, but also creating awareness and human development.

Your Holiness, it is my humble request to you, to urge the Government to improve service provision in the informal settlements and to address security of tenure, economic entrepreneurship, health, education and security.

In conclusion, I take this opportunity to thank the Government of Kenya and Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops for giving me this opportunity to share with you my experience living in an informal settlement. It is a pleasure and honour, not only for me, but also all the residents of informal settlements. I dedicate this honour to them.

God bless you and our country Kenya!