In June of this year I had the privilege to visit our long standing Kenyan partner Undugu Society of Kenya. Along with Leasa Creagh, Trade Aid’s Handcraft Buyer, I spent a week with Fred Masinde, General Manger of Undugu’s Fair Trade Unit, visiting craft producers and some of Undugu’s community programmes.

(Fred Masinde will be in New Zealand during September and will be giving public talks in cities from Christchurch through to Auckland. Look out for signs or emails from your nearest Trade Aid shop)

The Undugu Society of Kenya (USK) was founded in 1973 and is one of the oldest development organisations in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its focus is on street children rehabilitation and community empowerment.

USK divide the work they do into three programmes:

• Children and Youth - charged with responsibility of providing rehabilitation services to street children
• Education and Training - the Education programme (UBEP) works in the 4 Nairobi slums targeting children aged 12 years and has non-formal learning centres. The training programme (ISTP) provides opportunities for youth to acquire vocational skills through apprenticeship training
• Community Empowerment - implements integrated community development interventions in areas with high poverty levels. The programme focuses on capacity building, economic empowerment, and health education.

The sheer size of the task USK face is evident in their strategic plan targets

• to equip at least 2,000 children with numeracy and literacy skills
• to train at least 15,000 youth with technical skills through apprenticeship training
• to increase the incomes for at least 40,000 households
• to rehabilitate 10,000 street children

Trade Aid through its fair trade purchasing supports these programmes by offering income generating activities for poor producers, especially those in rural settings. USK realised early on that to prevent children ending up on the street they would need to empower local families and communities.

As well as visiting the many producers we buy from I was taken to see one of the Community Empowerment projects in the vast Kibera slum in Nairobi. The slum was about the size of Christchurch’s Hagley Park and was home to about 800,000 people. The slum is divided into 12 villages and the project is working with two villages, each with a population of around 100,000. I was surprised to learn that the slum dwellings were owned by absentee landlords and everyone was paying rent. Fred commented that people were very rich from this and from running other businesses in the slum.

the only drain in the slum area

The project was run by 3 staff members on site with a manager based at the head office. I met with the Project Manager- Mrs Purity Kagendo and the Business Advisor Mr Makori. They explained that the philosophy behind the project was to empower the community both economically and socially.

Empowerment through economic programmes:

Encouraging groups to form and then giving them business training, they are offered loans of 10,000 Kenya Shillings (NZ$200) for each member to set up a business. The loans must be repaid within one year. Most of the businesses are based within the slums although a few are located outside. Each group has a constitution, bank account, etc. These groups are to develop cohesiveness within the community and to give support to individual members. Examples of businesses established include food selling, retail shops, charcoal selling, sewing, etc.

At the time they had about 200 loans out to 8 groups - each individual received a loan and could pursue whatever they wanted. They also had grants for groups of youths (5 members per group) who were looking to set up a business. They had given out 25 grants worth about $1m shillings (NZ$21,700).

 
participants of training workshops

Empowerment through social programmes:

These activities were managed by Purity. They included education about Human Rights, especially child and womens rights, environmental concerns and how to access govt. funding. They formed groups and gave leadership training to initiate and manage projects. On the community health front they have trained several community health workers and give training on preventative health esp HIV/Aids. They support 20 families who have HIV/Aids and make arrangements with pharmacies to access drugs. Drugs for HIV/Aids are free in Kenya but the very poor have difficulty accessing these. They have set up 2 community run pharmacies to supply cheap drugs. They have also built 20 blocks of toilets and have started some drainage work. There is no sewage system in the slum and most people use a ‘flying toilet’. This is where you do the business into a plastic bag and then hurl it as far as you can! Users of the toilets are charged 2 shillings a time and this is for the cost of pumping out when full and general maintenance. Two water taps have also been built with a charge of 2 shillings per gallon.

one of the community pharmacies a new toilet block to replace the flying toilet method!

They also run an informal school (UBEP) of 200 children. This is for children who cannot afford to go to a government school. Lunch is provided free to all students.

The basis for all the projects are that they should be community run and self funding. The current project has been going for 2.5 years (although the school has been going for 20 years) and is a 3 year project. If further funding is available it will continue.