Thriving slum economy in Kisenyi,Kampala

Kisenyi slum in Kampala

By Hellen Nyamweru:The intertwined issues of urban growth and the prolification of slums,now a home to very many Ugandans is one of the touchy subjects  today.Slum free cities are the latest buzzwords in urban development terminology.Slums have  always been blamed for  causing cities' failure but is this the real truth?.The mapping team in Kisenyi I,II and III have  a different  story;Deep in Kisenyi slums  exist a beehive of activities  from the many businesses that operate in one of the largest slums of Uganda.

A chapati vendor busy at work

Garment shops,salons,laundry shops,food stalls,tailoring shops,jua -kali metal works businesses ,motor cycle (boda boda ) seat covers businesses to mention but a few are  some of the thriving businesses within this vast slum.Slum dwellers survive on these businesses to bolster their  finances,some  having to operate several  small businesses to make ends meet.

Tailoring and home seat covers making

Several markets/trading centres also exist in these slums where the buyers have high purchasing power because the slum is much populated.These small businesses have helped shield slum dwellers from the recent global economic crisis in a capitalist state like this where there is no form of social assistance for the poor. People have made these slums their homes and some of these issues as to them contributing to the economy and having so much untapped potential should be put into consideration before pushing them out of the city and labeling them as the 'unwanted'.One must put in my mind that slums are driven by livelihood availability patterns coupled with non-availability of  affordable housing and other services.

The Uganda slum dwellers federation in these slums have always desired to live in better areas and they continue to save from the little they get everyday.Most have businesses that are doing well and from which they manage to save into the urban poor basket .During the recent mapping in Kisenyi,several slum dwellers with businesses were interviewed and the most striking feature  of the responses was the fear of apprehension which is palpable especially for those who have already faced eviction threats.In Kisenyi III,Abu Bakr Kawoooya is working with 60 members of Luzige saving group to design and make motor cycle (boda boda) seat covers.

Motor cycles (Boda bodas) seat cover making

The business is successful but the group's biggest concern is the prospect of evictions as much of the land around them was recently bought with subsequent evictions.''We fear we are soon losing our business''-Abu Bakr Kawooya.

Presently,slum dwellers within the federation in Kisenyi are saving everyday for they know nothing as clearly divides the empowered from the powerless as the control over money.

Kisenyi Federation members showing their savings books

These are their own resources, {a shilling a day}which they are proud of rather than waiting for handouts and grants to trickle down to them in stingy driblets from some bogus poverty alleviation program and the like.And when this shillings grow,they  will start thinking  of what to do and  then go ahead and do it, owning every mistake and success there is,eventually developing their area.All this therefore challenges the cliche that slums are  just  residential colonies of a people who blight the city,it shows that they are also  vibrant economy entities that can support themselves.Developers might also be forced to consider  slums developing their settlements through organic growth and taking the slums as open economies all together in the near future.

One man's loss,another man's gain.....

By Hellen Nyamweru: It appears that not everyone will appreciate programs meant to benefit the poor in the slums,not even if the projects are striking at the root of one of Uganda's problems;Poverty. Political leaders can either guide the people under their jurisdiction or mislead them.The latter is what slum dwellers of Nabuyonga,a settlement in Mbale came to witness when mapping of the settlement was curtailed by area political leaders who claimed the program focused at 'stealing' people's land.According to them,mapping was equitable to surveying the area,readying it for investors',imaginary investor' since they do not have any documents whatsoever to back their claims.These leaders have selfish interest in the area and are threatened by any development ventures because they feel their influence will be compromised.Nabuyonga settlement qualifies to be a slum under the UN indicators and past efforts to ameliorate the area have not been successful because of the same leaders.It has insecure residential status which means the residents lack secure tenure and evictions are rampant,poor housing quality and overcrowding,inadequate access to clean and safe water as well as  inadequate access to proper sanitation and other infrastructure.

Some of the houses in Nabuyonga slum,Mbale

During enumeration,the same problem was experienced, collective meetings were held with all area  leaders but they bore no fruits.Some of the leaders would not see eye to eye and the federation therefore resorted to individual meetings to enumerate the slum.It was not easy but they were able to do it eventually.These are the same leaders who would be asked of the population of the area only to suggest very unreasonable figures which were gross underestimates of the actual figures.Accusations of corruption and inefficiency are wont in the area according to area residents,significant sums of money intended for particular projects do not reach the community.One LC I Chairman in Mbale whose name i will not mention disclosed that to his knowledge most of the vaunted projects in Nabuyonga have never materialized.There is evidence of some previous development though it has not translated to sustainable outcomes.
Another isolated case of resistance to the program was witnessed in Namataala settlement;Doko cell still in Mbale where leaders stopped the excerscise,led the slum dwellers to the police station where their maps were confiscated only to be get them back after the Mbale municipality officials intervened.

The local gin malwa distilling den in Soweto slum

Misinterpretation of the excerscise by the leaders also led to similar events in Jinja,Soweto settlement where slum dwellers and ACTogether staff were physically confronted by the area residents.Soweto slum probably gets its name from the South African Soweto slum and it is inhabited by the bulk of the urban poor in Jinja municipality,their numbers swelling year after year yet the leaders give no attention to their plight.The housing in this slum is not defined and there are no proper routes,most of them are congested, grass thatched and prone to catching fire.
There is a lot of alcoholism in the area and people spend most of their precious time drinking the local potent gins distilled within the slum area.The Jinja slum dwellers federation had visited Soweto to meet the leaders and sensitize them over the program but on reaching there they were not given an opportunity to table their issues but  were instead chased with machetes!!!.This was so absurd and they had to run for dear life.The leaders there had labelled the federation as land grabbers and this is what had made the community hostile.
What is encouraging is that despite all this incidents,the slum dwellers were able to map the rest of the slums both in Jinja and Mbale,they are unstoppable and most have appreciated this excerscise as open sesame,an opportunity to have their settlements mapped,recognized,the data entered,maps produced and documented to produce rich inventories that can be used to lobby and negotiate for better services in the slums.The mapping will also serve as a tool towards securing tenure for the slum dwellers because it will have formally recognized their structures and no one will have the right of pushing them around like  leaves  swept in a courtyard,no one !!

Mapping complete in Jinja and Mbale!!!

By Hellen Nyamweru: As i write this,i am filled with enthusiasm and pride for the Uganda slum dwellers federation and in this particular case Jinja and Mbale slum dwellers because all the slums identified in Jinja and  Mbale  have been fully mapped by the slum dwellers themselves!The mapping in Jinja and Mbale is part of a larger City Alliance program of promoting cities without slums in Uganda and in other nations supported by organizations and federations of the urban poor. All the identified settlements have been mapped by the community themselves with minimal supervision from ACTogether Uganda.The excerscise took place in a period of two weeks in which community members were fully involved.The mapping teams were prior trained by community support officers from ACTogether Uganda and other SDI affiliates who had visited Uganda to facilitate the process between 1st-7th of May.

Mapping is aimed at promoting land management and tenure tools for poverty alleviation.This is why it is done with a degree of accuracy and detail needed for slum upgrading and promoting secure tenure.The community updated the maps by filling in the missing structures and sites that have come up since the last maps were drawn.The mapping data is been entered at the moment and is aimed at coming up with up to date maps for all the settlements in these two regions.This will be achieved by filling in the gaps realized by the difference between the digitized map and the mapping data.It will then be linked to the house number and household data collected during the social mapping excerscise ( profiling and enumeration) prior done to come up with detailed inventory of all these particular settlements such as the demographic change,service gap among others.All these is aimed at transforming settlements of the urban poor,to aid the Government of Uganda/municipalities in planning for these areas that have been in the past neglected and lack quite a number of services.

The mapping team in Mbale displaying the Bujoloto map,building it up from several strips before mapping.

With time,slum dwellers have realized that they should combat myths and prejudices surrounding slums and slum dwellers and in their place replace them with facts,figures (profiling and enumeration) and maps (spatial data)to assist them in lobbying and negotiating for services lacking in their settlements,secure tenure and proper housing too.The community is now  skilled on laying out the maps and identifying their own settlements as well as doing the actual mapping

Jinja slum dwellers mapping Rimasi settlement

Slum dwellers face a number of challenges because of residing in areas that have never been formally mapped meaning that actual present maps do not recognize their existence.This means that they can easily be evicted or pushed out of areas while their residence is sold to the highest bidder.It also means that the slum dwellers may construct houses on areas reserved for roads or other public service utilities unbeknown of the fact that the place is reserved.To avoid all this,slum dwellers appreciated this excerscise on mapping because it would guard against such incidences in the near future.It would also add weight to successfully reach their audiences or achieve their targets of change.It is a known fact that governments,corporations and rich investors prove hard opposition to the less powerful and with the information space.This is therefore one way in which slum dwellers have  found artful ways to increase the power of their information and leverage resources to create maximum impact.

Displayed strips of Masese I map in Jinja from the digitized map .

Based on the experience in Jinja and Mbale,the community was able to map on their own with minimal support from the ACTogether team.The excerscise has left them feeling like skilled cartographers/surveyors and much enlightened.Mbale slum dwellers for instance are so proud to update a map that was drawn in 1963 since that was the only available map,48 years later!. Slum dwellers have realized that it is not a herculean task to map their own settlements.They are very proud of what they have achieved and  sharing in crafting change and development in their own settlements!

There is hope at the end of the tunnel;Nagawa's life story……

By Hellen Nyamweru: Nagawa is a young single mother ,a frail woman whose beauty hides behind her somewhat tired eyes.She calls herself a 'veteran' of one of the biggest slum of Kampala,having practically lived here all her life.She was born and raised here in Kisenyi III.Born in a polygamous family,Nagawa had to drop out of school at age 15 after the untimely demise of her father,the sole bread-winner of the large family.There were no finances for the family leave alone continue paying for her school fees.Soon after Nagawa was whisked into marriage,herself barely an adult at the age of 15.Marital bliss was short-lived as Nagawa's husband passed away 4 years into the marriage making her a widow at the age of 19 with two children in tow,a boy and a girl.
Life became unbearable because she had no job having not completed school yet had to take care of two children.She started doing manual jobs at Owino market,the biggest market in Kampala city,she would wait on tables and serve food but the money could not sustain her and her children.Technically things went from bad to worse because she had to pay rent,provide food,settle medical bills,clothe herself and children all on her own.
She was always late in paying rent,many are the times she would get threat evictions,different padlocks on her door and even actual evictions late in the night at a time she had no clue on where to go or to turn to.She moved from one rent holding to the another in the slum most in very bad condition.The discomfort and inadequacy of their temporary accommodation notwithstanding,the stormy life was not scarring the children both emotionally and physically because of the loss of their father and the constant moving from one house to the next.Nagawa decided to relocate to the village.Life was not any easier and she decided to come back to Kampala in 2005.

She started by doing manual jobs yet again,got some income to start a second hand clothe business.In 2009,Nagawa joined the Uganda Slum Dwellers Federation because of the good stories she would hear about the federation as well as witness.The Kisenyi sanitation unit now towering over Kisenyi slum is a clear evidence of joint slum dwellers efforts.The sanitation unit provides clean water at a reduced cost to the slum residents.It also provides toilet and bathroom facilities that are well maintained by federation members.It also provides shelter to a number of beneficiaries.
On further interaction,Nagawa learnt the members save about UGX 100 which they let accumulate and can withdraw on convinience,having accumulated to meaningful sum.
At the moment,Nagawa stays in a rent holding which she  can afford.She has since been able to bring her children back to Kampala and they have been tremendous company for the young widow.She takes them to school which she solely pay from her savings with the federation.She saves for three months or so and then withdraws to pay the schoolfees.She also saves with 'Suubi'',the Urban Poor Fund which is a permanent kind of saving.Funds remitted are  not withdrawn,rather they earn interest for bigger developmental projects such as the construction of houses,looking forward to a secure new home for herself someday.
Since she joined the federation,her saving culture has greatly improved and she has been able to accomplish a lot aside from educating her children.Her second hand clothing business is running successfully.

Nagawa is slowly forming new attachments,getting to know many federation members,she has been given responsibility as a collector for the daily savings.Single motherhood is accompanied with vigorous strife  for survival and prosperity but Nagawa hope to beat the odds and provide a life for her two children.She has deftly adapted to the circumstances that surround her and a positive attitude toward life is what she carries with her nowadays.In her own words Nagawa says ''Life has tested me many times before but i will work with the slum dwellers to achieve many of my dream''.With a woman who has been short-changed by life on so many occasion,one cannot help but admire Nagawa.There is a position for Nagawa to start rebuilding her universe and that of her two little children with the aegis of Uganda Slum Dwellers Federation.Beyond the litany of social problems that blight the Kisenyi neighborhood,there is a woman with hope and dreams to achieve.

Mapping kicks off..........

By Hellen Nyamweru:Last week saw the commencement of slum mapping in two cities of Uganda i.e. Mbale and Jinja aimed at collecting spatial data for effective and inclusive planning of the cities.Mapping is aimed at promoting land management and tenure tools for poverty alleviation.Using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) mapping,the activity is aimed at producing reliable numbers about slum populations to further help in the effective planning of our cities and avoid problems of urban decay.This comes after slum enumerations in which social data from slum areas was collected.The social data done collected present information on village layout,population size,land and structure ownership patterns,infrastructure,ethnolinguistic groups,health patterns and others.

The slums we have today are in bad shape ,simple shacks made of flimsy structures of cardboard,mud and even polythene bags.Unable to find proper housing,slum dwellers build their structures on empty government land or private land which makes them vulnerable to multiple evictions.Overcrowding and congestion with rubbish littering all over makes slums ineligible for basic services most especially because city authorities fail to recognize them.They are excluded from the wider city budgets in many cases.

Mapping will therefore formally recognize  slum dwellers and slums in general because their structures  will  physically be seen on the maps in their respective cities.This will in turn give them a voice to lobby and negotiate for the basic services that lack in the slums yet availed to their neighbours dwelling in the well planned areas of the cities.
In most cases,monitoring issues in the slums is a vexed subject and therefore slum dwellers are left  to face many of the problems affecting them alone.It is their collective effort that will help them pull out of the dire straits The mapping exercise has been  well received by the slum dwellers in both cities,Jinja and Mbale and the exercise is expected to spread to the rest of the cities i.e Kabale,Arua and Mbarara.
A one-week break has since been taken by both the  mapping teams within the federation and the community support officers from ACTogether  to evaluate the situation in the field,come up with area boundaries of more slums and get ready for more work in the cities.We've established a good start and we pray for a good ending too!!

Women and poverty in the slums.

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By Hellen Nyamweru:Women and girls in the slums are particularly affected by the harsh conditions the slum presents.Inadequate services ranging from housing with little accessibility to  water,health,sanitation,schools and other essential basic services.Women for instance have different physical needs than men and have a greater  private need of toilet and bathing services.Inadequate bathing and toilet facilities as well as in effective policing in the slums exposes women to rape and other forms of violence .Violence in the slums is endemic and goes widely unpunished because of fear of reprisals and attacks from perpetrators.This among other factors contributes to making and keeping the slum women poor.

Most women lives in the slums are characterized by the daily struggle to feed their families.Majority of these women are single mothers who have been left/abandoned by their husbands with several children to take care of.Their husbands fail to pay alimony and the burden of children is left to the women which impairs their ability to get any gainful employment and thus contributes to keeping them poor.In addittion,most women in the slums do not own the structures they live in,they lease them and pay rent which also takes away the little savings they might have made.Inadequate sanitary facilities enhances the high incidence of disease and infections among women in the slums.This has a big impact on their health and they have to spend on the little they have on treating themselves.

In line with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) ,Uganda is committed to reducing by half-between 1990-2015,the proportion of people without sustainable access to sanitation.The Government has ambitious plans to ensure that 90% of households will have  access to a hygienic,affordable and sustainable toilet by 2015.However existing Government policies fail to address government failure to enforce laws obliging landlords and structure owners to construct sanitary facilities for tenants in the slums and this continues to affect the lives of many in the slums negatively.The federation of slum dwellers in Uganda is committed to bringing some of these gaps to light.

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Through the enumeration exercises that have been carried out in many regions of Uganda,slum dwellers intend to use the findings to negotiate and lobby for many of the basic services lacking in the slums.The findings will open doors that have been closed in the past,they will give a voice to many who had been voiceless and recognize the slum dwellers as an integral part of the city entitled to all other services provided by the government to all citizens of Uganda.The time to do this is now,the wait is over!!

Rich landlords in the slums!!!

By Hellen Nyamweru: As the old adage goes."the poor will always be the walking sticks of the rich".A true revelation of this is being witnessed by the numbering and enumeration teams in Mbale slums during the on going enumeration and mapping activities.In Nkoma ward where there are very large expanse of slums,enumerators in the numbering teams discovered the painful truth of absent landlords who own very many stuctures lacking even the basic services i.e toilets and wash areas.In Uganda government regulations on housing are an abused subject,nobody takes note of this,not even the tenants who live in these dilapidated structures they call homes because they have no choice,places not suitable for human habitation.The local authorities and public health officials have a duty to ensure that landlords comply with standards on building and sanitation as stipulated by the Ugandan laws.These laws such as the public health act and local authority building codes are however are not observed in slum and settlements to the detriment of slum dwellers.This is worsened by the fact that private investors are not willing to invest in such areas.The poor in the slums are left to  fend for themselves,to negotiate how to live in very inhuman conditions!!.Ignorance is yet another characteristic of people living in the slums,they are not aware of their rights and therefore do not fight when things are not in order for instance on building regulations

In Nkoma,a large slum in Mbale city,a certain landlord owns more than 27 structures which do not really look like places human beings should be living.These houses lack toilets and bathrooms,structures they may wish to call toilets/bathrooms are made of tree branches,sacks and old plastics with open tops.I tried to enquire  on how often the landlord seeks to improve the status of the tenants especially concerning toilets and bathrooms but this is what I learnt from a tenant who has been here for seven years,"he comes to pick/demand  his money every end of month or sends some of his sons to do so,he has never tried to improve on the sanitation in this place, in fact if you do not have the rent,he sends you off but not after getting his rent either in cash or kind".

The deprivation of these services especially toilets and bathrooms hits women really hard because they require more privacy than men such as washrooms.It is the responsibility of landlords to ensure that tenants in the slums have access to toilets and wash areas as well as emptying pit latrines so that they do not overflow and become a health risk.This is however neglected in this area where landlords appear to be interested in renting as many structures as possible instead of taking care of sanitary needs of their tenants.

The toilet cum bathroom in the area in question,Nkoma ward, Nambozo cell was in very bad condition,almost full and yet the landlord who happens to be an absent landlord is most likely to do nothing about this.This calls for more sensitization on slum dwellers to realize that they have rights guarding against such inhuman conditions in these slums and it is hoped that the results of this enumeration exercise will help to inform many on this issues.