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KIBERA COMMUNITY YOUTH
Empowering youth to have a stake in the future
Frederik Ouko (26), the director of KCYP, calls his organisation ‘a form of self-help group. We want to approach issues as a united front, as it’s hard to get people to listen if you’re disorganised.’ KCYP’s programmes include some of the more common activities, like community clean-ups and garbage collection, sports activities and street performances that deal with issues like drug abuse and HIV/AIDS. On their website (www.kcyp.kabissa.org) they say about their clean-up activities: ‘KCYP shall use improvised tools and equipment for cleaning until it gets proper equipment from any willing donor.’ This is typical for KCYP’s attitude, working with what is there.
A few of KCYP’s programmes are rather less conventional. One example is their community visits. For a small fee, visitors are given a guided tour – although you are not supposed to call it that – of Kibera. Besides generating a bit of income for the organisation – any income from activities is divided between the person who does it and the organisation – this programme was set up to give outsiders a chance to look beyond the flying toilets and dirty children and see what life in one of the world’s largest slums is really like. ‘People would treat Kibera like a circus attraction. We try to show the other side: how people live.’
Other income generating projects include beading by teenage girls – the jewellery is exported to Sweden – and the assembly of solar panels, which provides income for the organisation and its members as well as an affordable energy source for many Kibera households. Then part of the income that goes to the organisation is used among other things to help pay for school-fees of KCYP volunteers.
Finally, perhaps the most remarkable project by KCYP in an environment where mere survival is a challenge, is the music recording studio they are trying to set up. ‘Youth empowerment is about enabling young people to realise their dreams…’ it says on the website.