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Kenya: Faith-Based Collaboration Helps Slum Tenants Fight Malaria NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept. 12, 2003 — PSI/Kenya has teamed up with the faith-based organization Christian Children's Fund (CCF) to fight malaria in the slums of Nairobi by targeting families with children under five. The project helps residents of the Marurui slums realize that there are other dangers as insidious and life-threatening as exploitative landlords and hired thugs. For Jedidah Mugure, a single mother of five children, life had stopped. She had lost her job as a domestic servant in one of the posh suburbs of Nairobi and had come home to find that the bulldozer had paid another visit, this time more viciously than the last. City guards accompanied by policemen and hired youths raided the slums for the umpteenth time, mercilessly flattening structures in the sprawling low-income residential area. As Mugure and fellow residents rushed to salvage what little they had of value, hired youths took advantage of the turmoil and stole any items that might earn them a few shillings. Fires were set to structures to ensure no one would return and by the time it was all over, men, women and children were left helpless, homeless and confused. By afternoon, with the slum now resembling a battlefield, most of those affected were pushing handcarts out of the area, not knowing where to go. Mugure and her family would once again spend the chilly night under a tree, with nothing to eat. Deep-rooted tensions reign in the sprawling Nairobi slums that are home to hundreds of thousands of people. In Nairobi, an estimated 60 percent of the population survives in slums built on just five percent of the city's land area. The tension, violent clashes, killings, rioting and looting that are typical in the slums are invariably triggered by feuds between landlords and tenants over uncontrolled rents. Tenants in the slums are charged between 200 and 10,000 shillings per month, depending on the structure and location. The dwellings are in overpopulated suburbs that have few services and amenities, and wholly inadequate water and sanitation. Other factors playing out include absentee landlords, unsecured and disputed land tenure, urban migration and rapid population growth, inadequate urban planning, poor service delivery, alleged mismanagement of slum upgrading efforts and debasing poverty. In scenarios such as the above, the PSI/Kenya sales team cannot help feeling superfluous when exhorting the slum residents to purchase insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) to protect themselves from malaria. The residents feel they have far more formidable foes. The Nairobi Integrated Programme, run by the CCF, is a community-based project that aims to improve nutrition and reproductive health, and prevent HIV/AIDS and malaria. The project also has activities in micro-enterprise and food security, early childhood care and development, and registers only those families who have children below five years of age. The CCF-PSI partnership is appropriate as children under five are a major focus of the PSI/Kenya malaria project, which enables families to access ITNs without straining themselves financially. This was made possible by the merry-go-round, a popular system among low-income communities where members come together in small cells and contribute a fixed monthly amount. The money thus contributed is pooled and given to one member in rotating turns. The joint program has enrolled 1,000 children, 300 of whom have disabilities. About 670 children have sponsors in 13 countries around the world. So far CCF has bought 1,500 nets and sold them at cost to the families. PSI/Kenya aims to reach 650 families with three ITNs for each family. The approach is a rare example of NGOs taking advantage of each other's strengths to reach marginalized communities. In similar fashion, PSI/Kenya is working with the Red Cross and Bible Translators to reach communities in the remote northeastern province of Kenya. — Bernard Muthaka, PSI/Kenya
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