Kibera Slums

SETTTLEMENT PATTERNS
Kibera is the second largest slum in Africa housing approximately 1.2 million people. The emcompassing area is roughly 1% of Nairobi’s total territory but holds more than ¼ of its population. The neighbourhood is divided into a twelve different villages.

This slum city is located roughly 5 kilo. from the city center. The Nairobia river and the Nairobi Dam, an artificial lake that provides drinking water, surrounds the border of Kibera. The land is, for the most part, marginal and covered in mud and filth. Houses are built cloistered together with little space for passageways and no roads for any kind of vehicles. However, despite these problems the slums of Kibera is often seen as a vibrant cultural center pulsating with life.
To accommodate for their basic survival necessities, food and water, a subtle pattern of settlement can be observed. Food producers in Kibera would have their plots in large open spaces across from the river and dam. This open space includes different slopes and soil types. Maize is generally grown during the long rains and fast maturing varieties during short seasons. Animal husbandry is a challenge due to disease and theft but otherwise numerous chickens, ducks, goats, sheep and pigs can be found. Unfortunately most of the open space land has been privatized since 1989 and people are left in constant fear of eviction. Yet this is not their only worry: crop losses due to theft, inadequate rainfall, disease, and pests are also problems. Therefore the inhabitant settlement patterns in this area of Kibera has left much to be desired; indeed, other measures are being taken in order to survive in this subsistence urbanity.


AGRICULTURE
An agriculture project funded by the French government called “Garden in a Sack” was implemented in 2007. The main problem preventing agriculture was not a lack of cultivating knowledge but of land and cash to buy agricultural material.

This garden project objects was to “increase access to food…and income available for each household through the sale of vegetables from Garden in a Sack”. So far the project has been successful in securing a stable food supply for the inhabitants of this subsistence society.

These gardens are usually left by the doorstep and cultivate tomatoes, onions, kale or spinach.

Specifications
• Each sack has volume of o.1 to 0.5 cubic meters
• Leafy vegetables are most suitable because they keep on growing even after leaves have been harvested
• A single sack can plant 30-40 seedlings of kale or spinach and 20 tomato plants
• Capsicum, leafy onions, coriander were later introduced


Steps:
• Seedlings distributed by French government are grown in nursery beds for at least three weeks before the seedlings mature enough to be placed into a sack
• Sacks are prepared by household:
-->Find or buy a sack (very inexpensive at Kshs.10 and easily available)
-->Find soil and stones
• Good soil is difficult to find so they might end up having to buy soil in order to participate in program → this discourages a lot of people but also shows commitment once purchased
-->Seedlings are distributed
-->Plants are watered
• Access to water is difficult because there is no reliable water. Water is usually purchased from water vendors who do not have consistently set prices



These two garden sacks were tried out, the first model worked the best because it allowed the seedlings greater planting area.

Advantages:
• Cheap and uses readily available materials
• Self sustaining program
• No longer vulnerable to soaring food prices
• Steady and increased monthly income
• simple method of ensuring food security

WATER
In the hot climates of Nairobi water is hard to come by, and even harder in the slums of Kiberia. New systems of regulating and distributing water has been put in place by the Kenya Water for Health Organization in order to avoid the harsh prices charged by private water vendors. Their goals include:
• Providing safe, clean water within reasonable distances
• Reducing waterborne diseases
• To strengthen community management and institutional capacity in order to run and manage installed facilities
• To facility gender equity in project formulation, decision making and management facilities and services

They run two different projects: delivering water tanks to be managed by women in the community and community solar water disinfection called SODIS.

A common scene of water vending by women.

Their first program buys water from the Niarobi Water Company and pumping them into tanks and selling them to the Kibera community at a very reasonable price. Women groups who are accountable to each other to keep prices gouging at bay: “This informal system relies on the belief that community-driven women’s collectives will handle this precious resource fairly because of their shared hardships.”

A water tank in Kisumu Ndogo/Kibera.

A map of installed tank locations.

The second program consists of a method to disinfect water using sunlight and plastic PET bottles.

Guidelines for the application at household level

For this method of water treatment to be effective the sun has to have had time to activate the pathogens in the water. Therefore the amount of sunlight has a direct correlation to how long it takes for the water to be treated.

Sunny day: 6 hours min. of treatment
50% cloudy: 6 hours min. of treatment
50-100% cloudy: 2 days min. of treatment
continuous rainfall: unsatisfactory performance --> use rainwater harvesting instead

CONCLUSION
These solution for water and agriculture are only the start of a survival kit for a subsistence urbanity, however, they provide for our most fundamental needs. These methods for cultivating food, and water conservation and distribution are efficient, effective and easy to execute, making them not only appropriate for the most basic urban survival kits, but indispensable.

Posted By: Carrie Cheng

Sources:
Pascal, Peggy, and Eunice Mwende. “A Garden in a Sack: Experiences in Kibera, Nairobi,” Urban Agriculture Magazine Online, January, 2009, www.solidarites.org/Actualites/articles/kenya-15.01.09.pdf (accessed November 3, 2009).

AllAfrica. “Kenya: Garden in a Sack.” AllAfrica. http://allafrica.com/stories/200806021274.html (accessed November 3, 2009).

HopeBuilding. “Sack Gardens Bing Nutrition, Revenue to Kenyan Slum.” http://hopebuilding.pbworks.com/Sack-gardens-bring-nutrition,-revenue-to-Kenyan-slum (accessed November 3, 2009).

The Common Language Project. “Kenyans Tap Sun to Make Dirty Water Sparkle.” University of Washington. http://clpmag.org/article.php?article=Kenyans-Tap-Sun-to-Make-Dirty-Water-Sparkle_029 (accessed November 3, 2009).

City Farmer, Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture. “Urban Agriculture In Informal Settlements: How Can it Contribute to Poverty Alleviation? Research in Nairobi, Kenya.” University of British Columbia. http://www.cityfarmer.org/nairobi.html#nairobi (accessed November 3, 2009).


SODIS. “SODIS Method: How does it work?” Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology. http://www.sodis.ch/methode/anwendung/index_EN (accessed November 3, 2009).