Despite poverty, lack of refrigeration and a constant battle for cleanliness, the residents of Kibera are resourceful with the food they eat and sell. Fried fish, samosas, and bean dishes are all on the menu, reflecting the cultural mix of those who call the area home
Continue reading...Category Archives: Kenya
Kenyan MP forced out of parliament for bringing baby into chamber – video
An MP was ejected from the Kenyan parliament after she brought her baby into the chamber. Zuleikha Hassan brought her five-month-old daughter into the chamber because of an emergency at home, but she was ordered to leave because house rules state 'strangers' are not allowed in the area
Continue reading...Kenyan MP and baby ejected from parliament session
Several colleagues walked out of parliament after Zuleikha Hassan was forced to leave
Some Kenyan lawmakers are protesting against a decision by the temporary speaker of parliament’s lower house to eject their colleague who was holding her young child during a session of the legislature.
Zuleikha Hassan was ejected from the floor of the National Assembly on Wednesday with her five-month-old baby.
Continue reading...‘I fear for the children’: the families battling to beat the odds in Kibera – photo essay
Family takes many shapes and guises – and in Africa’s largest slum the ties of love and blood are especially tested, cruelly sculpted by epidemics like HIV as well as strained by economic and climate crises
Rosemary Achia, 53, has two daughters. One has a job washing clothes in Nairobi and the other works in a hotel, so all seven grandchildren live with her.
“I am a little old for this,” she says. “I have been 11 years a widow. He was a good man but God gives and God takes away.”
Continue reading...Entrepreneurs beat the odds in Kenya’s anarchic mud city
Despite the poverty, lawlessness and pollution of life in Kibera, creativity still thrives thanks to a mix of determination, guts and luck. The Guardian spoke to people who have all three
Living in a slum is the reality for 1 billion people and rising across the world. More than half of Africa’s city dwellers live in “informal settlements” and the continent’s biggest is Kibera, in Kenya. We heard from people there about their struggles, aspirations and their innovation, busting the myths and stereotypes about being poor and powerless.
Continue reading...I spent 21 years of my life angry before I realised we in the slums must lead change | Kennedy Odede
Kenya is on the rise. Those living in slums such as Kibera will only share in the progress if urban solutions come from our community
The future is shining in Kenya. By many measures, life is better than it has ever been. A decade of steady economic growth has made Kenya a rising middle-income country. Reports on the health and education of the population show indicators are marching upwards. On the streets, a sense of hope and hustle prevails. This is progress.
Continue reading...‘If we don’t kill these people they will kill you’: policing Africa’s largest slum
As Kenya waits to hear if a police officer will be charged over the death of 23-year-old Carliton Maina, alleged unlawful killings in Kenya continue, leaving poor communities wondering if those charged with protecting them are simply killing with impunity
At a meeting between police and community members in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya, where crime is acutely high and mainly unreported, the two sides try to find common ground.
There are courteous introductions and then an appeal for openness – and information – to help the police tackle Kibera’s crime problems.
Continue reading...‘They just eliminate us’: Are Kenya’s police getting away with murder? – video
Promising student Carliton Maina was shot by the police in Nairobi. His mother believes he was murdered. As part of The Guardian's special focus on Kibera, we met residents of Africa's largest slum to explore their deep distrust of the police and find out what Maina's, and other recent deaths, can tell us about the dramatic rise in extrajudicial killings across Kenya.
‘We lose so many women’: the tragedy of unsafe abortion in Kibera
With terminations outlawed in Kenya, women and girls in its largest slum have to rely on expensive and unreliable under-the-counter pills, toxic chemicals or other homemade remedies. The consequences can be fatal
Podcast: The women fighting back in Kenya’s biggest slum
Edita Ochieng sashays up in her “This is what a feminist looks like” T-shirt – bright and new in a place where clothes are aged and faded.
“Got them,” she stage-whispers, a flash of silver foil in her hand. Four pills carefully cut from a longer strip. Ochieng has just been attempting to buy abortion pills from among the numerous kiosk-sized “quack” chemists in the Nairobi slum of Kibera. Just to show how easy it is.
Continue reading...The women fighting back in Kenya’s biggest slum – podcast
Edita Ochieng and like-minded women are taking a stand against endemic sexual violence and police corruption in Kibera. Plus: Angelique Chrisafis on why climate protesters in France are stealing portraits of Emmanuel Macron. Warning: this podcast contains references to sexual abuse
Edita Ochieng, like many women in Kibera, has been a victim of sexual violence. But with police corruption rife, she has banded together with several other women to bring perpetrators to justice as well as providing advice and counselling.
The Guardian’s Tracy McVeigh and Rod Austin spent time in Kenya’s largest slum with Ochieng and describe her extraordinary story to India Rakusen.
Continue reading...Kenya’s first coal plant construction paused in climate victory
Owners failed to assess environmental and community concerns, court rules, while US ambassador wades into debate in support of coal power
Kenya has been urged to halt construction of the country’s first ever coal-powered plant near the coastal town of Lamu, until an assessment is made of its environmental and cultural impact, in the latest setback to the $2bn project (£1.6bn).
Plans for the 981MW station, backed by a Chinese-led consortium, are in limbo after Kenyan judges revoked the environmental licence at the end of June. They ruled the authorities had failed to carry out a rigorous environmental assessment and to inform local people of potential impacts.
Continue reading...Aviation security under scrutiny after death of stowaway in London
Experts suggest heat sensors could help detect people hiding in landing gear compartment
There have been calls for fresh scrutiny of aviation security as efforts continue to identify a man whose frozen body fell into a garden in London from the landing gear of a Kenya Airways plane.
Investigations have centred on Nairobi airport, where the man is believed to have concealed himself in the aircraft, but one aviation expert suggested airlines and plane manufacturers could take steps including fitting heat sensors to detect stowaways.
Continue reading...Bob Collymore, Kenya’s telecoms mogul, dies aged 61
Tributes pour in for head of Safaricom, who helped east Africa pioneer cashless payments long before Apple Pay
Bob Collymore, the chief executive of east Africa’s largest and most profitable mobile network operator Safaricom, died on Monday aged 61, after a two-year battle with cancer.
Tributes poured in from across east Africa for the Guyana-born British businessman, who steered Safaricom through nearly a decade of innovative expansion during which its user base doubled and profits increased 380%, turning it into a $10.8bn company. According to the company’s most recent annual report, Safaricom’s business contributed 6.5% to Kenya’s total GDP in 2018.
Continue reading...‘If you pay, you’ll go’: Dadaab residents claim bribery is price of getting home
Somali people at Kenya’s sprawling refugee camp allege that UN staff want money for everything from food to repatriation
Four years ago, Asha made what seemed like an impossible decision. She knew the journey from Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp back to her native Somalia was risky. But after an attack by the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab, the Kenyan government had threatened to close the vast, sprawling camp for security reasons. Asha feared for her family’s safety if Kenyan soldiers moved in to evict them.
“I wanted to be gone before the rough-up,” recalls Asha. “I didn’t want my girls raped by [the] military forcing them on buses. I wanted to protect myself too.–
Continue reading...Can planting billions of trees save the planet?
Organisations from around the world are reforesting at an unprecedented rate
When Clare Dubois’s car skidded on an icy road in Stroud, Gloucestershire, a tree prevented her vehicle tumbling into a ravine. It was, she says, a sign. Humanity is nearing a precipice. Trees can stop us going over the edge.
This calling was so strong that Dubois, a business life coach, founded TreeSisters with a friend, Bernadette Ryder, to take on a daunting mission: to reforest the tropics within a decade.
Continue reading...Roadside bomb kills Kenyan police officers near Somali border
Blast claimed by Islamist insurgents follows attack in Mogadishu that killed eight
A roadside bomb hit a police vehicle patrolling near Kenya’s border with Somalia on Saturday, killing several of the 11 officers inside, a Kenyan police spokesman has said.
Separately, another blast in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, killed eight people, according to emergency services.
Continue reading...As a gay man, my life will be over if I’m deported to Kenya. I urge the Home Office for mercy | Ken Macharia
After making my home in England for 10 years, I have received a notice to leave everything I love behind
On Monday, I opened the letter I never wanted to receive. After 10 years living in the UK I was told that I am no longer welcome and should make arrangements to leave the country “without delay” or risk being deported in the middle of the night. As a gay man, whose country of birth, Kenya, persecutes homosexuals, I felt my whole world collapse around me as I read the matter-of-fact words on the Home Office headed paper.
Related: Gay rugby player faces deportation to Kenya as asylum claim rejected
Continue reading...Fight the fakes: how to beat the $200bn medicine counterfeiters | Helen Lock
Armed with blockchain and AI, health workers and campaigners are battling the bogus business that kills thousands
By the time the teenage boy was standing in front of Bernice Bornmai, feverish and delirious, it was already too late.
It wasn’t just the malaria that was killing the 17-year-old, it was the time he’d wasted taking fake medicine. The antimalarials did nothing to stop the disease marching through the young Ghanaian’s body: his organs were already shutting down.
Continue reading...Kenya court upholds ban on gay sex in major setback for activists
Judges in Nairobi say they had not seen enough evidence of discrimination to change law
LGBT campaigners have reacted with anger and dismay after judges at Kenya’s high court rejected a bid to repeal colonial-era laws criminalising gay sex.
The ruling has dealt a major setback to campaigners, who hoped that scrapping the laws would inspire other countries in Africa – where discrimination is widespread – to do the same.
Continue reading...Binyavanga Wainaina, Kenyan author and gay rights activist, dies aged 48
One of Africa’s best-known authors and gay rights activists died on Tuesday after an illness
One of Africa’s best-known authors and gay rights activists, Binyavanga Wainaina, has died at the age of 48.
The Kenyan author died on Tuesday night in Nairobi after a short illness, the BBC reported. His death was confirmed by Tom Maliti, the chairman of the Kwani Trust, which Wainaina founded.
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