One year ago, around 200,000 Christian Aid Week collectors took up the challenge of ending poverty by going door to door inspired by the story of two Nairobi slums, Matopeni and Kiambiu.
Moving on
Today, the Matopeni slum residents have completed work on new drains and are about to start laying water pipes while Kiambiu's Usafi group have received title deeds for land and have begun looking for support to help build homes and provide essential services.
This will allow them to leave the slum, where many people do not own their homes and face the constant threat of eviction, and build a more secure life.
Their success culminates more than ten years of work. Having helped the Usafi Group organise community clean up days, Christian Aid's partner Maji na Ufanisi went on to build four sanitation blocks in Kiambiu for them to manage.
This not only brought clean water and sanitation facilities into the slum, but also enabled the Usafi Group to save money from the nominal fee for using the facilities which they have used to buy this piece of land.
Teaching others
Kiambiu's Usafi group are now teaching others how they can follow their success, recently hosting residents from other slums including Kibera and Matopeni.
And within Kiambiu, other groups hope to follow in the Usafi group’s footsteps by taking control of their own future.
Humphrey Oduor is one of the leaders of Kiambiu Youth Group which runs one sanitation block in the slum. ‘I want to see the community change – for the youth,’ he says. ‘When I see the whole society achieving these aspirations, that is when I will be celebrating.’
Standing together
But Humphrey and the other residents know that it is the ongoing commitment of Christian Aid Week collectors that allows work to continue to help communities in poverty out of poverty.
‘We will organise a prayer session,’ says Humphrey. ‘We will pray for you to open more and more doors and for the people who are supporting, for their hands to give more openly.
I know the challenges of knocking on doors. I pray to God to give them courage to continue to work and for the givers to have generosity and courage abundantly – poured, shaken, overflowing.’
We will conclude the Matopeni Diary with a final entry around August 2011. For now, find out more about the projects Christian Aid Week 2011 will help fund.
