While Sh30 can be considered insignificant, it is changing lives in Kahawa Soweto slum, bringing communities together and attracting partners.
Like is the case in most informal settlements where economic hardship is common, illicit liquor and local brews were ravaging lives, degenerating young men and bringing misery to families.
That was until 2015 when a group of men came together to give the addicts a pathway to better life.
The group had 20 members, mostly drunkards, already written off by their family and society.
As they pondered what to do to tame alcoholism, another young man went blind from drinking cheap alcohol in the area and died.
This added urgency to the group. They needed to devise a plot out of the mess.
They came up with a table banking scheme where every member would contribute Sh30 daily which the person would have used to buy the alcohol.
The collection would go for two weeks before giving one member to start a business.
Kaeni Sober group chairman Samuel Wanyoike told the Star that it was a rotational initiative and quickly, every member got capital to start their businesses.
Before long, lady luck would smile on the lot that is based near the City Hall-run Kahawa Health Centre.
Wanyoike said a government slum-upgrading programme approached the group to explore how their initiative could be boosted to better help the local community.
The French Development Agency, which is part of the entities participating in implementing the Kenya Informal Settlement Improvement Project, is also funding some construction works at the health centre to improve access to healthcare by the community.
“The sponsors came and asked us what they could do for us, we said there is a public toilet in the slum that could be upgraded to better serve the community,” Wanyoike said.
Besides upgrading of the toilet, the group also requested that a water selling business be started for the group and cybercafé set up for the community.
The French agency agreed to the request. The toilet upgrading works is almost complete with the other two requests in the pipeline.
“We believed that modernising the community toilet is a way of improving sanitation in our community. It has also created jobs here for people working in the construction site. A small effort of starting the group is changing lives here,” Wanyoike, 55, said during the interview.
Gautier Cohler, the Senior Urban Specialist working at the AFD regional office, told the Star that his organisation has been collaborating with the Kenyan government since 2010 in implementing the slum upgrading initiative and that support to such groups have changed lives.
He said funding of 8,000 euros has gone into such projects part of which is being used to do the construction works at the hospital and also supporting the Kaeni Sober group.
The French embassy had taken some 40 students from France to tour some of the projects as a study tour.
The students from SciencesPo visited Nairobi for a study trip in the framework of their master’s degree on governing the large metropolis.
The purpose of the trip is to better understand the economic, social, environmental and cultural challenges which can be encountered in the sustainable development of a large metropolis.
They visited Kahawa Soweto to
interact with some of the projects
that are currently underway under
KISIP, which is being implemented
by the Government of Kenya, the
French Development Agency and
the European Union.