Slum Survivors Documentary

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The United Nations has a news agency called IRIN focusing on humanitarian issues. IRIN has produced a remarkably insightful documentary on Kibera. The video reveals the good, bad, and ugly about Kibera by profiling various residents of the slum.

I hope that if you are interested in Tenderfeet, you will watch the whole 40-minute video, it really is an absolute must in fully understanding the challenges of the school.

In the film, you will hear references to the Kenyan currency of shillings. Note that 100 shillings is about $1.30.

You will see a mother named Carol who washes clothes for a living. In fact, just like Carol, most of the Tenderfeet guardians also wash clothes to earn what little they have. Almost all the guardians are widows or their husbands have abandoned the family.

The going rate for washing clothes in Kibera is 200 shillings -- it is hard work that can take hours. One is considered lucky if one can find 2 or 3 jobs washing clothes in a week and substantial time is spent going door to door asking for work. Doing the math, this shows that the typical earnings are around $30 per month.

Salaried permanent jobs are almost unheard of for slum residents. They are highly sought after, but finding these kind of jobs is virtually impossible.

Keep in mind that the average rent in Kibera is $10 to $15 per month, and school fees can be $5 or more per child per month. This leaves very little for food, clothing, or medical care. Tenderfeet fills the gap for these families, providing free education, a feeding program, and allowing mothers to search for work without leaving children at home unattended.

The issues dealt with in the documentary are handled in an honest and unflinching way. Please be warned that many of the topics are difficult to cope with and may be hard to watch.

IRIN - Slum Survivors

If there are any problems watching the dailymotion version embedded above, you can watch it in five parts through Youtube:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
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Cheryl's Visit To Kibera, Part 3

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Here is the third and final write-up from a kind and generous visitor, retired nurse Cheryl Fyfe. Cheryl tells us about her visit to the new land for the school. To see the first part of her account, please click here. Part two is here.

The land for the school was purchased through the wonderful support of the Collette Foundation. We are hoping to have a school building constructed and school bus purchased by the fall of this year.

Cheryl donated funds to purchase and transport trees and bushes for the land. Please see photo right. Here is what she wrote:


A wonderful ray of sunlight, a beautiful project going on, Tenderfeet. Right now the school is in the middle of Kibera under horrendous conditions but wonderful news for these beautiful children, a new school is in process.

Land has been bought and paid for on the outskirts of Nairobi. It is in a relatively rural area and has about 1 acre. The area is lovely, fresh air, birds singing flowers growing and this will all be novel for these slum children. There will be a school built and hopefully funds to buy a bus to bring these children out to the school. It will be a huge difference for these kids.

Edwin picked me up by taxi and we met a pickup truck, that was filled up with trees and hedge growth. We started out I swear no springs, as I felt every bump. The further out of the city I went my spirits rose and rose (I guess I am really a country girl at heart). But in each breath of fresh air I rejoiced for the children. There are open fields to look at, trees on one side of the property. It has a wire fence erected already for the safety of children. It is a place of beauty and peacefulness.

We unloaded the truck in an assembly line. It took us nearly 1/2 hr to unload everything. We started planting the hedge. An old man, Margaret's brother, was also helping. Old? It turns out he is 42!! They had a great time trying to guess my age and would not believe me when I told them I was nearly 62. sad comment was in Kenya if you live past age of 35 you are considered lucky!

We had great fun planting the trees I had bought. We had to wait for Margaret to see where she wanted the fruit trees planted. I was wearing my sandals and since it had rained last night the mud was tremendous - my sandals weighed at least 5 lbs. each they were that caked with mud.

Tenderfeet holds a very special place in my heart and yet I think Uganda holds my heart. I planted my own tree an Umbrella tree so I can sit under the shade when I come back and watch the children eat the fruit from the trees we planted, what a glorious thought.

After the tree planting morning we went back to Margaret's house, she shares with her children, her brother and his two children and has taken in orphans besides. It is a modest house but is filled with love and hope. A palace could not have been better. Margaret cooked a most marvelous Kenyan meal with Motoke, chicken spinach and so many other vegetables it was a feast fit for a king, and to think that those who have so little but share so much with such graciousness it was heart touching.

The best of all she had a little cat, missing my cats so much it was a pleasure petting a cat again. We had a wonderful afternoon with Edwin and his lovely wife Christine and Margaret and the children. Going back to guest house I felt a renewed sense of hope and will go back with renewed energy to raise funds for this wonderful project.
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Cheryl's Visit To Kibera, Part 2

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Below is the second write-up from a wonderful recent visitor, retired nurse Cheryl Fyfe. To see the first part of her account, please click here.

Note that below Cheryl describes visiting some homes in Kibera. These included the homes of Wickliff Wesonga and Phelix Ondiek, pictured to the right (Wickliff is the older boy shown first).

To read more about these boys, please click here and here.

Here is what Cheryl wrote:

KIBERA--

Until you have seen, smelt and touched Kibera no one especially in the Western World can comprehend what real poverty is all about. And yet Kibera has a life all of its own, you can feel a sense of community even in deplorable conditions. It makes me wonder how we would react in the same setting. I don't know if I can describe this place, you turn down a little alley with tin shacks and you are walking on muddy mounds of garbage. Most people do not have toilets so they defacate in paper bags and throw them into streets where you walk. It rained just before our second trip so everything was slippery with mud and slime.

I was completely and absolutely physically emotionally spiritually exhausted. I feel like screaming "Why do people have to live like this? Shouldn't we care enough to help them? These are good people. No one should have to live in these conditions." I was walking through mounds and mounds of garbage, slipping and nearly stumbling and so ashamed of myself a western person looking at these conditions and feeling so overwhelmed, is there anything at all one person can do? How can we understand this place until we experience it? Inside the tin shacks the floors were made of dirt and because of the rain they were completely muddy one tiny little room and yet every place I visited was welcoming and I was made to feel at home.

These are courageous wonderful people whom I greatly admire. When I was feeling overwhelmed I thought perhaps if I can help one school and affect some children's lives maybe that will be enough. The visit to the school again was unbelievable and to see the shining bright faces of these children from the slums was inspiring. The children and teachers were off that day for holidays and yet most of them came in for the visit.

I had brought a toy for each child and pencil from Canada with our Maple leaf on it, the disbelief on receiving gifts truly touched my heart. For some of these children it may be the only toy they will ever see.

They sang to me songs of welcome, recited verses from the Bible, without forgetting anything. Remember these are children 3-5 years old, remarkable children. Their teachers truly amazing, to be admired working with these conditions and giving such love and hope to these children it makes one feel humbled. Tenderfeet School is an oasis of hope in a bleak world and my heart goes out to Margaret and the teachers.

Cheryl's Visit To Kibera, Part 1

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I wanted to share some insights about Tenderfeet from a recent visitor.

The visitor is Cheryl Fyfe (pictured right with Mama Margaret), a retired nurse from Canada who has been traveling to Ugandan and Sudanese orphanages as a volunteer the past 8 years. Here is an article about Cheryl and the work she does. She also has written about her experiences here.

She has seen a great deal of poverty up close. Cheryl recently visited Tenderfeet and wrote three accounts about her experience. Below is the first one, reprinted with Cheryl's permission.


Kibera - What can I say. It is a different world. I don't think you could ever prepare yourself for it. But it is a place I knew I had to see, I really need to understand Africa the good and the bad. Kibera is one of the largest slums areas in Africa. It is a frightening area, an area simmering with hatred and despair, a place of dark ugliness an area.

Tensions are boiling just under the surface ready to explode at any time. But it is also a place that houses some of the most courageous people I have ever met and a beacon of light shines through the darkness of despair, a school called Tenderfeet. This is my goal to see this school.

Edwin had come to pick me up at Mayfield, the place I am staying we walked to catch a local bus, crowded mini van, as we left our area we passed a massive beautiful Baptist Church whose congregation numbers in the thousands. Getting aboard the bus is an experience, shoved like sardines in this van, when someone needs to get off the conductor who hangs out the door pounds on the van, why couldn't he just tell the driver to stop? Because the radio is blasting so loud no one could hear anything! The area was becoming poorer and poorer, shacks of corrugated steel,piles of garbage strewn about and soon we were in the middle of Kibera.

Edwin is a tall strong young African man who was my guide, he is associated with an organization in USA called Lahash, and he is a godsend I thanked my lucky stars I had him to help me. He instructed me to stay very close to him which believe me I was more than willing to do. My feminist attitudes flew out the window- and I was so thankful he was there with me. We went down this rutted little alley into a courtyard full of garbage. We picked our way through the garbage and came to another gate of tin and knocked. We entered another area with tin shacks and I could not believe it I was at the school called Tenderfeet. A school in the middle of the slums run by a remarkable woman called Margaret.

I have never admired someone so much as I do her. She leaves the security of her home and travels to Kibera to teach the children of the slums. No charge, the school is free to the children, children with HIV are welcomed and treated the same as other children. In Nairobi there are still very great tribal tensions, and since the elections they have spilled over into violence. Margaret was telling me that just a short time ago just in the street outside of the school 8 people were killed. In the past Margaret has had to move school three times, due to violence. Not too long ago school was attacked and ransacked everything destroyed, desks smashed papers destroyed for what? Because she is from a different tribe.

Another time a gang of thugs brought kerosene ready to burn the school down she was inside, not knowing if she was about to be burned alive. She prayed and one of the thugs realized she had taught him as a child and she and school were spared. This remarkable woman was still there the next day to help with the children. Now this is courage! As she was telling me her story we could hear a lot of screaming and shouting, the noise was getting closer and closer, Edwin told me to stay exactly where I was, I certainly did as I was told. Edwin came back and said there was demonstrations in the street and it would not be safe on the streets. We sat huddled in the school and we were speaking in whispers not to advertise the fact there was a white person among them. We smelt smoke and watched as a cloud of black smoke very close by billowed up into the air. They were burning tires. After an eternity it seemed the commotion drifted away then frighteningly they would be back and it seemed they were right outside the school. After about an hour or so the rabble drifted away and Edwin went outside again to see if it was safe to walk.

We would not be visiting any other place today, as Edwin said it was too volatile. We started walking rather quickly trying to make our way to a main street where we would catch transportation. We walked past railroad tracks that had been destroyed by the crowds, it was an area strewn with garbage. We walked past a group of 5 young guys, who started shouting Edwin told me to walk ahead of him and to stay close, it was rather nerve wracking- Luckily they did not follow us for long. We then went through a huge market bustling with life, the people still looked sullen and I moved along as quickly as I could. The noise of the rioting crowds had quieted down. We finally reached the area to catch the van I breathed a sigh of relief.

I was sitting in the middle of three seats with Edwin beside me and another young man on the other side. The young man began to crowd me a bit, then all of a sudden Edwin leaned over me yelled at the guy and grabbed his arm and started wrestling with him I was confused. What on earth was Edwin doing he grabbed the guys coat and searched the pockets, by this time the guy was screaming at Edwin and fighting back- he escaped into the streets and Edwin grabbed my purse and showed me how the guy was unzippering my purse, using his coat as a shield. Even Edwin was a bit shaken he kept saying "That was close".

This is Nairobi -- I am sure some are saying are you crazy to be doing this? My answer I may be but it is something I have to do for I have met remarkable courageous people working in desperate conditions and remember this is their everyday life. I need to understand their life. I will go back Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday if conditions settle down a bit. Now I have a greater understanding of the area and certainly understand the need for help needed for this school.