Kibera slum

Kibera case study

Kibera is a slum division in the City of Nairobi, Kenya. It is located 5 kilometers from the city center. It is the largest slum in Nairobi and the second-largest in Africa. A 2009 population and housing survey reported that Kibera’s population as 170, 070. It is hard to accurately compute the population due to the fact that the slum hasn’t been officially recognized by the Kenyan government.

Furthermore, because it is a slum, residents may not be able to read or write, so filling incenses are a problem.

General Facts:- | Population | 700-900k | | Distance from Nairobi | 7 km | | Physical size (acres) |~630 | | Portion of people earning 15% | | Est.

AIDS orphans |> 50, 000 | | Portion of people renting | 93% | | Avg. monthly rent |$15USD | | Avg. # rooms per dwelling | 1. 11 | | Typical room size | 9′ x 9′ |

It is a place where the people who live there face innumerable challenges, including the following, to name a few…

• Living in one-room houses made of mud, with tin roofs with about 1m? of space per person.
• No running water (most water has to be purchased from brokers)
• Little to no access to electricity
• Widespread unemployment and low wage-earning rates (< $1 a day for the majority)
• Rampant disease, from malaria to cholera to HIV

Lack of ownership of their property Improvements

After a decade or so there has been an increase in efforts to improve conditions. The most notable example is KENSUP, or the Kenya Slum Upgrading Project, which is sponsored by UN-HABITAT. Resulting from a 2000 meeting between President Moi and the UN Human Settlements Programme, KENSUP aims to improve physical structures in Kibera and other slums through a process called ” slum upgrading. ” The program calls for the temporary relocation of residents of Kibera to the adjacent ” decanting sites,” allowing the construction of permanent dwellings to proceed in the Kiberan villages.

Work has commenced in the Soweto East village, and as of September 2009, the first decanting site was under construction. Kibera needs land/tenancy rights, housing, water, electricity, healthclinics, education, employment, security plus much more. All these issues are being addressed to a lesser or greater extent by many organizations including the Churches, UN-Habitat, MSF, AMREF, etc. Moneyis finding its way through from many international organizations including the Gates Foundation, Bill Clinton Foundation, all the well-known charities, and of course the churches both in Africa and internationally.