RECLAIMING THE BEAUTY OF
NAIROBI, ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS, TRAINING AND RECYCLING.
Friends of A Clean Kenya,
In furtherance to our national environment awareness and
sensitization campaign and in preparation for Practical Steps in
separation of waste at source and recycling, we were at Kibera’s Laini Saba and
Lindi areas to join Usalama Bridge Youth Group, Nairobi Dam Youth Group,
Katwekera Youth Group, Ndovu Women Group, Ushirika Women Group, Slumcare
Organization and Kounkuey Design Initiative-KDI to clean the neighborhoods
and the river that feeds Nairobi Dam.
The
Clean Kenya Campaign must say that we were impressed by Kibera
residents’ desire to reclaim Nairobi’s lost glory. We held a consultative forum
with these groups about 3 weeks ago and here they were responding to the call
to clean our cities and towns by organizing a massive cleanup and awareness
campaign.
Residents of Kibera reclaiming their neighborhood from
garbage.
The beauty of this initiative is that the reclaimed areas are
subjected to a beautification process that includes a sanitation block,
complete with toilets and bathrooms with running water so that the human waste
and other affluent do not find their way to the streams. There are also shops
from which one can buy items made of recycled waste. This is one area KDI has
managed to make residents of Kibera have faith that there are still NGOs out
there with a heart for service despite the myriad of them flocking Kibera whose
impact residents cannot put a finger to. With bare minimum and a skeleton
staff, KDI is doing wonders reclaiming waste dumps and transforming the same
into clean sanitation blocks and shopping areas and parks where recycled
ornaments are sold. This is the transformation we are talking about, service
delivery and turning waste into opportunities.
Current phase being reclaimmed waiting
ground breaking and construction on 15th Aug, Otieno Sungu of TCKC addresses residents
during the awareness forum.
As we build up towards major recycling of waste to reduce
waste dumps in Kenya, we are happy to announce that plans are at an advanced
stage to begin a one week training for
organized groups in converting waste into various products. The Clean Kenya Campaign is in serious
discussions with one of the major converters of waste in Nairobi, especially
plastics and polythene into products such as cooking briquettes, fencing poles,
roofing tiles, handbags. lampshades among other products to begin a countywide
training program for organized groups such as Usalama Bridge currently involved
in collection of waste. We wish to ensure that such waste do not end up in
dumpsites, streams and rivers but is turned into products from which these
groups can make some extra earnings.
Usalama Youth and “Ibra’ of KDI take Otieno Sungu of TCKC and his team round phases 1 and 2 that have been reclaimed and
turned into sanitary blocks and shops for residents.
The trainees will also get at very affordable prices
machines for making these products. We are hopeful and encouraged by the
response we are getting from Friends of A Clean
Kenya that we should be able to find sponsors who can support and
subsidize the cost of this training program as well as availing these equipment
to our youth.
We envisage that this training will be rolled out in Nairobi
County beginning this November across all the divisions. As we continue to
work towards cleaner towns and cities, we will roll this training to other
counties beginning January 2013. In this regard, and for further details, we
invite applications from interested groups that have not registered with us or
not in our data bank of waste collectors to get in touch with me through this
email address; otienoraphael@gmail.com
.We shall schedule training on a first come first serve basis.
Our aim is simple and achievable, that by 1st of June 2013 as our country
turns 50 years next year, we will look back and say our estates, neighborhoods,
streets, towns and cities are much cleaner and waste dumps have reduced by a
certain %age, above all, we shall have offered opportunities to several of our
youth to earn a living out of waste.
These things are possible; they only require a little
leadership from both public and private sector alike (which is lacking in Kenya
in abundance!) and we can transform this country and stop talking about waste
being wealth but actualize the same.
We also want to focus on service delivery especially from
our councils. If services are not timely, efficient and satisfactory, breakdown
follows. Lip service is what hurts this country most. That is why our
drainages are blocked; sewers overflow and garbage dumps continue to overwhelm
and choke our lives. Those who are tasked to offer services must up scale their
efforts, in this era of performance contracting, we will spotlight the areas
whose service are most wanting as we journey across all counties, we will bring
back score cards of none performers and those who are doing great. An Awards
program is also in the offing for cleaner towns and cities with regard to
efficiency and delivery of service.
Finally, we wish to appreciate and thank our major sponsors
so far; The Public Service Transformation Department at the Office of the Prime
Minister, A Better World/SOF-DI, Akiba Uhaki Foundation, Mugumo Communications
Limited and the many individuals who have given us support in one way or
the other. We wish to also thank those who have shown interest in working with
us in this transformative agenda and those, like KDI and Usalama Youth who are
responding to the call to clean Kenya, you give us the much needed
encouragement. It is not an easy task convincing a resigned public that things
can change despite the lethargy all around us. We look forward to continued
discussions with you on how best you can be helpful to this process.
Otieno Sungu,
Programs
Manager.
The Clean Kenya
Campaign-TCKC
Tel; 0729 29 4743
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