A helping hand to Kibera Town Centre

The Kibera slum is predicted to become one of the major epicenters of the COVID-19 outbreak in the coming days, weeks and months. It is well established that Africa is only just at the beginning of its pandemic curve, and the COVID-19 outbreak will have particularly devastating effects on Kibera’s residents.

The Problem: An intro to life in Kibera slum from Human Needs Project on Vimeo.

Since lockdown early April, residents in Kibera have been unable to go to work. In addition to the lack of clean water, quality sanitation facilities, and health services, social distancing is an uphill battle with tight living quarters and cultural resistance to quick behavioral change.

Kibera, located in Nairobi, Kenya, is one of the largest slums in Africa and home to the Kibera Town Centre, an all-in-one infrastructure which services the residents:

• Basic services: clean drinking water, toilets, showers, and laundry
• Empowerment services: business skills training, micro-credit, a wifi café, health kiosk, and a green marketplace

Kibera Town Centre’s ambition is to become environmentally, financially and technically sustainable, but since the lockdown was imposed it has had to close all revenue-creating services to focus directly on humanitarian support for the community. Since the onset of COVID-19, the Centre has served the community free of charge:

• Over 55,000 people have received free clean, treated water services
• There have been over 50,000 uses of its toilets and showers
• Over 10,000 school children have used newly installed foot pedal operated hand wash stations
• Over 150,000 residents of Kibera have been approached with COVID-19 awareness & prevention campaigns via social media, radio, loudspeakers and bulk sms
  messaging

The Foundation’s grant will finance the next four months’ services:

• Provide free clean and safe treated drinking water to 80,000 residents of Gatwekera Village
• Provide access to free dignified flushing toilets and hot showers to 80,000 Kibera residents
• Sustain the Kibera Town Centre until COVID-19 passes and it can re-open all center operations and start generating revenue