Mkuru Kwa Njenge

What a busy first day here in Nairobi! (If you want to skip the other information, just read the bold portions) During this week, some people at Sanergy are doing some field assessment trips and are going into various slums and talking to youth groups. Today, Shashin (someone from sanergy) and I went to a slum area called Mkuru, specifically a region called Kwa Njenge. We didn't go into Kibera because Sanergy is interested in exploring other slum areas which are less explored by NGOs where they have more opportunities to reach out to those regions.

To start off my day, I went on my first matatu (Kenyan minivans - main form of public transportation. It was pretty amazing how the conductors try to pick up as many people as possible while he stands on the side of the van with the door open calling to people. We arrived in downtown Nairobi to catch the next matatu to go to Kwa Njenge to meet with Amursha Youth Group who was going to talk to Sanergy about the system that they have created there in that neighborhood.

At the center, we found toilets and showers as part of the center. Started by community desire, the youth in the group built the latrine and the showers in a location where it used to be  a garbage dump.  

Facts that I learned:

• Facilities: There were 2 showers for each gender and 3 toilets (they separated them by gender). There were only cold water, but they planning on having heating. The water was being directly drained into the open sewer system.
• Who: mostly used by the men who came in after work while they were also using the toilets. Every day, about 10-15 men who stop by to use the center in comparison to the 70ish uses per day for the toilets(which according to Sanergy is low --150 for other centers). According to the youth, the women mostly bathed at their houses simply because it was a cultural element, but they would like to move the women to using the shower system because it was exactly like what we had heard in which they would usually have to make everyone in the family leave in order to shower. It was mostly used to along w/ the toilets. Other men would just shower where they were working.
• When: Mostly used in the evening after coming back from work.
• Costs: Currently it is at 5 shillings (they have only been founded for 1.5 months and are still deciding on prices). and are planning on increasing to about 20 shillings/ use when they add heating (by boiling water). The current costs for the water is about 3 shillings/20 L and they use about 10-12 L/shower (depending on the operator) so the costs of the water is about 1.5 shillings/shower use. for the toilets, the costs depends on whether or not the landowners were willing to pay. So, they had destroyed other nonfunctional toilets (the youth were approached by the community) and they let those landlords only pay about 50 shillings/household during the month using a card. However, for other landlords and individual tenants whose landlords don't pay for them, it costs them 100 shillings/household/month. Soap was provided for users if they wanted it, but some people would bring their own.
• Construction: Storage tank of 5000 L (which they refill about every 2 days)....it was all done by the youth of the area who had started in 2006/2007 as a football community

Their center seems to be the only one in the area with showers. Everywhere else, there would be several toilets in places (whether or not they were useable or not varied)...but they were one place that had a bath room, which was just a stall with a pipe that drained out.


Youth involvement was pretty big in the area that we were in today. The group themselves meet once every Sunday to discuss major issues in the community. Like I said earlier, they used to be only involved in football but have since then expanded to create this nice center. They were planning on holding a forum with Sanergy in the future because they want to partner with Sanergy in this next step. They want to hear more about what Sanergy them so we can possibly join in.

When we came back, I presented Showergy's idea to the Sanergy team and their main concern was like what IDEAS had to us about the situation with water, which I'm still trying to gather more information about.

Anyways, that's most of the thigns that I've learned about showers so far. I probably left out some stuff but I'll put it up later. Tomorrow, I don't know what the plan is for the morning but during the afternoon I think we are going to meet with another youth group in a different slum area.