How are you? How are you? How are you? The little kids of the Kibera(means Jungle in Nubian) slum (the second biggest slum in Africa and home to somewhere between 600,000 and 1.5 million Nairobians depending on time of year)shout as they see wazungus (whites) walk through the slum. It is the only English most of them know. The children are strikingly cute even though their faces are marred by dirt and snot. All smiles as they run over trash laden dirt walkways edged by small drainage ditches and low profile shacks made of mud and roofed with corrugated metal. Dogs scamper amongst make shift bbqs spewing smoke from the drippings of indistinguishable animal parts. Goats, chickens and ducks wander through trash piles grubbing on whatever edible crumb they stumble upon. Meat from these animals is displayed hanging from windows and on rice sacks covered in flies. A constant rotten, sour and pungent smell is forced into my mouth and nostrils by the swirling winds mix with dry red earth almost immediately drying out my eyes, nostrils and mouth. The only structure that is not a low profile shanty is a giant mosque that protrudes from the middle of the slum and a few community centers that house public latrines, sanitation stations and fresh water dispensing silos.
We are being led by 6 or 7 young men(from the ages 19 to 21), all fasting for Ramadan and carrying around worry beads, who look more like boys (I am sure this is due to malnutrition and the difficult way of life). I quickly find out that they are all entrepreneurs with an impressive business sense. We continue deeper through the slums where the trash piles seem to grow more impressive at every passing step. This mostly pedestrian only main byway is lined with vendors selling everything from sukuma wiki (kale) to charcoal (this is a very common product) to underwear to all sorts of random electronics, to shots of liquor. We tote brand new implements (hoes, shovels and rakes) that my colleague Marco just purchased for these young entrepreneurs. These are the tools of their trade. As we meander through the slums on our mission driven walk they share their vision, their goals, their slum and the importance of trash pickup to the health of their community and environment. Their English is accent laden and at times difficult to understand but I am able to decipher most of their informative statements. They tell me how the people in the slum don't understand how the trash makes them sick and why it is important to clean it up and create awareness.
Their business model: A brigade of young males who go around the different villages in the slum (Makina is the only one I remember because that is where the towering mosque was) selling garbage bags to willing neighbors for 20Ksh (about a .25 USD)then once a week on Sunday they go around and collect the trash bags, selling them another trash bag. They tote the full tattered bags of trash back to their plot of land where they separate the trash into four streams. Their plot (which we enter by bending down through a small gate in a piecemeal shabby fence)a dirt 20ft by 100ft area bordered by a train track that runs through the middle of the slum. This is where a large part of their operations commences as they sort the trash in to four piles plastic, glass, metal, everything else (plant material, thin plastic bags, paper,etc.).
They receive roughly 10Ksh per kilo of plastic and glass, 20Ksh per kilo of metal and the rest they burn. I ask the crew if they compost the plant material. As a committee, as they always seem to communicate, they tell a story about how in the past that would compost the plant material and use it to fertilize a 20ft x 20ft section. They point to the direction of the plot and as if almost on command there enters a herd of goats through a gap in the shabby fence. They tell me they were growing sukuma wiki on this plot until a similar herd of goats crawled in through a series of gaps in their fence and devoured the small plot of blooming sukuma wiki. So now they burn it all.
Their excitement seems to grow as the show us around their open air operation and as we send a barrage of questions their way. This seems to create a confidence that inspires them to express an ever growing vision. They want to build a public latrine (which they have already dug a 20 feet deep hole at one end of the plot), sanitation center and safe water dispensing for the community. Their energy is contagious as the smallest and youngest looking one Fargag calls me over to tell me that if they open this center people will tell others and they will tell others. And then he punctuates his vision with his affirmation that this is marketing and they need to market their services and he repeats over and over the importance of marketing. They also talk about growing and selling sukuma wiki and selling charcoal. They seem destined to become a local conglomerate if it is the will of God, Saddam repeats again and again.
They confiscate our cameras to snap a bunch of pictures of the implement wielding group that has now grown to about 10. We reassure them that the four of us (Marco, a MBA intern from Wharton, Nick Tran my Accenture colleague on the ILRI-BecA project and Marco's friend Thomas who works for a venture capital company in London that invests solely in Africa) will discuss everything we heard today and propose how we might be able to help.
The the leader of the organization, Joshwa, guides use through other parts of the slum as we make our way out. My attention is fragmented as; I try to absorb this completely new environment, my brain computes how we can help and Joshwa tells me about his organization. He tells me about the other components of the organization (aids awareness, health education, youth education, environment). Their goal is to enable the youth in the Karibe slums to have a positive impact and build capacity. He tells me their needs are many but that this group is one of the most successful groups within his organization. He points out, that before this operation, these kids were idle and this led to drug use and other negatives. Now that they are making a few shillings they are motived and empowered. This was demonstrated by their excitement and good business sense. He shares a few additional challenges that his organization faces like a website to build awareness and promotion of their Karibe tours, which have become common among tourists and a great source of revenue for his organization.
Nick, Marco and I begin to distill everything we heard and we begin to generate ideas of how we can help. Currently their model is based mainly on selling garbage bags to willing clients for 20Ksh which they purchased from Nakumutt (the Kenyan version of Walmart) for 10Ksh and then become so tattered that after one use they become part of the trash. Many times when they are collecting the trash on Sunday their clients are not there (mainly at church) so they lose out on additional revenue. They create segregated piles which they sell to a local vendor about once a month. This is the lesser source of income. They have about 80 clients and 15 workers but some of the existing clients would prefer to throw their trash into newly opened gaps in their fences.
Our ideas gush like water from a gash in a dam and one idea inspires another idea and then another. We talk about an incentive based model where their clients receive incentives for collecting trash. We discuss investing in more durable bags or containers that can be reused. Another idea is changing their model from bag selling as the main source of income to focus on generating more income from recycling by again providing incentives (financial or something people value) for clients to collect, and even segregate the trash. This could even lead to clients finding their own disposal containers. This could give everyone in the community the initiative to participate.
As we are exiting the slums we exit through a long market where vendors sell absolutely everything including posters. One kiosk sticks out, a poster stand displaying six large eclectic images of Jesus, Ashanti, a Kenyan singer, Bob Marley, Chelsea FC and a Muslim prayer mat. We also notice numerous people with empty rice sacks. Could this be another option to recycle these bags and use them as durable and possibly cheap trash collecting receptacles. We decide that we will meet to continue this brainstorm and identify where we can add the most value. We are determined to develop several models that might improve their profitability and sustainability.
The mind turns, the music plays, the ideas flow.....
No comments:
Post a Comment