KENYA: The residents of a Nairobi slum still do not have access to basic sanitation

Record ID: 362666

  • Title: KENYA: The residents of a Nairobi slum still do not have access to basic sanitation
  • Date: 4th September 2002
  • Summary: (LIFE!1) NAIROBI, KENYA (FILE)(REUTERS) SLV BOY WALKING IN POLLUTED RIVER
  • Embargoed: 19th September 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NAIROBI, KENYA
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: People
  • Reuters ID: LVABJ1S7XWI6RUREG5HETZB21WKH
  • Story Text: World leaders at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg recently have pledged to halve the number of people in the world who do not have access to basic sanitation by 2015. The residents of the Kenyan slum of Huruma in Nairobi would be forgiven for being sceptical, as the scale of the task here alone seems staggering.
    Also known as "Ghetto", Huruma is a fetid labyrinth of claustrophobic dirt lanes and streams of stinking effluent.
    With only five toilets for 2,000 people, most of the residents of the "Ghetto" are using "flying toilets" to answer nature's call.
    You simply use a plastic bag, then fling it as far out of sight as possible. It inevitably lands on one of your neighbour's roof.
    Residents of Huruma are used to hearing thud on the corrugated iron roof of their shacks. No-one is surprised anymore when confronted to the familiar sight.
    "The other day I was in my house and someone threw human waste on the roof. There is human waste everywhere in this place, as you walk you are always likely to step on human waste," said Njoki, a 27-year-old resident, wrinkling her nose with disgust.
    World leaders at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg pledged on Wednesday (September, 4) to halve the number of people in the world who do not have access to basic sanitation by 2015.
    Walk into "Ghetto", or any one of scores of slum settlements housing two million people in the Kenyan capital, and the scale of the task for one African city alone seems staggering.
    At almost every turn, a sickly sweet stench of urine wafts from between the huts. Barefoot children play by trenches frothing with scum. The edges are strewn with telltale bags.
    In Njoki's neighbourhood, the only sign of hope comes not from the government, who consider much of the slums a virtual no-go zone but from residents determined to help themselves.
    On the edge of the sea of rusting iron roofs stands the only public toilet around.
    Four women got together to build the facility three years ago, paying off their investment with the two shillings ($0.02) a time paid by 50 or so visitors each day.
    On Sundays, when the toilet attendants say many residents decide to treat themselves, the number of users rises to 100.
    One of the owners, Philomena Mwangi, 50, admits that residents can only make so much difference to the sprawl.
    "There are only 50 to 100 people who can use the available toilets, the others have to use plastic bags and others trenches. We also have a water problem. If we need to wash anything we have to fetch water from somewhere else, because we don't have water. We have many problem because sometimes people throw human waste on top of our houses," she said.
    While the toilets, four separate cubicles decorated on the outside with French cartoon characters Asterix and Obelix show that things can change for the better, for most people life is getting worse.
    Margaret Nyambura lives in one of thousands of shacks patched together from mud, cardboard and scrap metal. Her house is so flimsy, it looks like a good kick would bring it down.
    She, like another 1.2 billion people on the planet, lives on less than a dollar a day.
    On most days, she brings home about 50 shillings (60 cents) from scavenging gin and soda bottles from a rubbish dump, which she cleans and then sells. There is certainly no money left to go to the toilet.
    "In the morning we buy tea for 5 shillings, than we buy milk for 5 shillings, then tea leaves for 2 shillings, sugar for 5 shillings and kerosene for 5 shillings. In the evening we are only left with 35 shillings, we use this to buy flour, kale and oil to cook. Therefore, at the end of the day all that money is spent," she explains.
    As she cannot afford the toilets, she often resorts to the long grass on a nearby patch of waste ground.
    So what is the solution? David Mwaniki, another Huruma resident, believes the help of the international community could improve things in the "Ghetto".
    "The world leaders should concentrate on the people who are here in Huruma, because we are over ten thousand people and all of us actually want that problem of water to be addressed properly, and housing and so we would like them to inject a lot of money here in Kenya - so that we can get money loans so that we can build better houses for us where by we shall have all those basic necessities like toilets, running water," Mwaniki told Reuters.
    But with large slums in virtually every third world city, the question remains how much attention can be given to Huruma.
    Consider that Njoki, Nyambura, Mwaniki and their neighbours are just a handful of 2.4 billion people world-wide who lack access to decent sanitation, and the scale of the Earth Summit pledge seems even more mind-boggling.
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