Friends of A Clean Kenya,
Yesterday, Sunday the 7th October 2012, we met Comboni’s Father
John Weboosta of The Catholic Church, Korogocho. Despite his busy schedule on a
Sunday, Father Weboosta met and consulted with the TCKC team from 2.30pm-4.30pm on
the issue of the Dandora dumpsite. We also thank Father Staphano for his
hospitality.
Before I continue, let me congratulate Father Weboosta on his winning an
Award in Germany recently on the great work he is doing with residents of the
affected areas of Korogocho and Dandora.
The rot that our cities are becoming!
We discussed a raft of issues, from the health challenges faced by
residents of Dandora and Korogocho to options for resolving the same.The
following were agreed upon as our common Action
Plan;
1.
That with the Concern
Worldwide Report, Trash and Tragedy released last month, and hopefully the
last, we must follow through on the recommendations and way forward. Father
Weboosta was a primary source of information for this report as well as one
conducted in 2007 by UNEP. Although nothing new or greatly varied is in both
reports, the problem lies in implementing the recommendations of these reports.
2.
We resolved that conducting more studies, as envisaged
by some already on the heels of Trash
and Tragedy, is not the solution any more, what must now be done is to push
for solutions. This problem is no longer anything new to keep doing studies and
reports about.
3.
That we will commence in the next weeks a thorough
process of documenting details of victims and their various health status as a
result of the dumpsite. This will require a team of medical and legal experts
for authentic verifications and documentation. The reports have been giving
generalized accounts of diseases and health challenges. We must place specific
victims to these allegations. The generalized and abstract data is why no
one bothers about such reports. We must put faces, families and people affected
and give the reports a human face.
4.
That once this is completed, together, we shall embark
on engaging all stakeholders, both through mutual engagements and any other
available avenues to bring forth a solution to this problem. We will include
those eking a living from the dumpsite with a view of structuring the processes
of generating income from waste in hygienic and safer methods. In this regard,
we will consider the options of waste receptacles and holding points for
separation of the various components that the various groups use for recycling
or sale.
5.
This will become part of our ongoing progress in
providing platforms for solutions in proper waste management.
In the meantime, we are happy to
report that through our forums, some participants in waste recycling caught the
attention of NEMA and were invited
to present their innovations at the ongoing Nairobi International Trade Fair. These are the
small gains we have kept talking about; that we must showcase, up scale, build
capacities, share information and knowledge and above all, replicate and create
wider impact.
We must also acknowledge all those
groups that are doing something worthwhile in waste management. We keep insisting
that studies and reports are no longer the way forward. We must now rest those
and implement, take stock of the impact and then, perhaps later on, evaluate
the impact of what we have implemented. We cannot study the same thing over and
over and expect that results which we already know will miraculously change
without any mitigating measures. The
results can only be worse scenarios if we keep procrastinating on getting down and
tackling the challenge. We must become masters of implementation and not studies
and reporting.
Ongoing
Engagements;
·
The Ngong Water ways in Kibera’s Laini Saba and Lindi
areas-A meeting was held on Thursday 4th October 2012 at Charter
Hall to brainstorm on how best to help residents of Kibera to clear the waste
clogging the river beds and put in place measures to ensure sustainable and
better waste disposal. Various stake holders from both Ministries and private
sector attended. The deliberations continue.
·
The markets cleanup Initiative. TCKC facilitated a meeting
between the market leaders from all the 53 markets in Nairobi and The City
Council of Nairobi. We are happy to announce that the market leaders have taken
up the matter of service delivery to the markets which they are following up with the
council specifically on security, provision
of water, cleaning services, unclogging drainages, re-carpeting floors and
repainting markets. We strongly believe the council will take up the
enthusiasm of market traders and tackle the sorry state of our markets.
·
Various consultative meetings between TCKC, other stakeholders and interest
groups in waste management.
The African
Women and Child Feature Service is now a partner of TCKC
to document and disseminate the good work TCKC
is doing on environmental awareness and
management. They will support us through documenting and highlighting
our awareness and sensitization campaign besides our other events and
activities.Their websites are www.awcfs.org
and www.mdcafrica.org.
To all our partners in this process, we thank you. It is not easy, there
are many vested interests, lethargy, negligence and outright dereliction of duty that thrive on the rot and mess; it is not easy
getting things done.
To the media, especially Citizen
TV for the series Scars of Dandora ran last week, to FAMILY TV for hosting both myself and Mr. Odhiambo Oketch on
several occasions for their weekly program “All
in The Family”, to The Star
Newspapers for covering our events and activities, to The Citizen Weekly for running our articles, to Radio Waumini, Radio Umoja and Kiss FM for the frequent airtime
and on air interviews to propagate our trans-formative and national agenda of A Clean Kenya
by June 2013 and now to The African Women and Child Feature Service, we
say on behalf of all our partners, BIG THANK YOU for providing a voice.
To those who follow with us on the implementation of resolutions of the
various stakeholder forums we hold, we appreciate you.
To the various public and private institutions and organizations that
are showing interest in working with TCKC, we welcome you on board with a strong
message that our interest is in getting things done- not studies, reports and
conferencing.
The Dandora Scars Part 1; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MOPD_eotqE
Dandora Scars Part 2; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVzFxCZwjC0With
Tunisians rejecting dumping of waste on them;
Let us all work
for a Clean Kenya as a Trans-formative Deliverable for Kenya as we turn 50 years
on the 1st of June 2013.
Otieno Sungu.
Programs Manager,
The Clean Kenya Campaign-TCKC,
Tel; 0729294743.
Website; www.kcdnkenya.org
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