Foto by Brian Otieno

Text by Victor Oduor

Generally this is the norm of the day. During the rainy seasons life is not that easy around kibera. Houses get swept away,poor drainage causes the effluent to move everywhere making the place smelly ,there’s mud everywhere and its your skill that keeps you moving . Despite all this disadvantages there’s also a blessing In disguise to the children. Kibera is a densely populated area and this means there’s alot of movement,people doing business,walking for pleasure and visiting each other .During all this activities, people loose coins to the open drainages. During the rains the streamlines get filled with water collecting all the wastes to the main drainage, this movement carries with it everything and that’s why after the rains you’ll find most of the children  wadding inside this dirty waters looking for coins. They always take it as a blessing because they can get money to buy food and their toys. This has endangered most of the children in terms of health since they are at high risk of contacting waterborne diseases or even getting pierced with the sharp objects being thrown daily inside this streamlines,not that this dangers are not there,it has become a stage all children go through just to survive in the slums,those who are lucky move on and those who are not, always remain in that stage untill late, with the zeal to get money most of the children drop out of school even after joining because they don’t give attention to their education, this is because the families are not able to support the children financially to learn comfortably,this are the children who once they turn into teenagers they also turn into gangsters because they realize late that they need education to succeed. With the life of a gangster most of them don’t celebrate their twenty fifth birthdays unless they change and find  jobs even if it pays peanuts. The circle is ingrained amongst the children in kibera and the best solution to this problem is to provide education and introduce activities which keep the children busy and also exposing the children to a bigger world outside cause most if not all doesn’t know much about life outside kibera