The first day I visited the slums of Nairobi, I was accompanied by Nicholas Kangethe Mbugua. A “Youth Facilitator” for Undugu, he served as our guide and translator. As we visited various Street Associations, he helped explain to the youth what Digital Storytelling was and what self-advocacy work such as this could offer to these young people. It wasn’t until later I learned that Kangethe himself had been a “chokorra,” a street boy.

Kangethe was born just outside of Nairobi in Kiambu. He was the oldest in a family of four and, as happens all too often here, his father divorced his mother and left her to care for her children alone. This meant that when Kangethe finished primary school (which is free in Kenya) his mother didn’t have the money to send him to High School (which is not  free). With very little education, eventually Kangethe ended up homeless by the age of 19.

“I found myself in the streets. My street colleagues were smoking and taking drugs. English people say if you can’t beat them you have to join them. There was no way I could beat them so I had to join them.” He explained that eventually this life in drugs also lead to a life of crime. “I couldn’t manage to steal from someone when I was sober, only when I was high could I manage to do anything wrong. When you live that life, most of the time you are being taken to prison. When you get out, you have nothing to depend on, so you find yourself stealing again, and then you go back to prison.”

This cycle of recidivism was finally disrupted by a traumatic event. Kangethe was serving a sentence of 18 months for stealing a mobile phone. He was upset because his mother would not come to visit him in prison. Only upon his release did he learn that his mother had become very sick and died while he was in jail.

“My rehabilitation started from there. My mom didn’t have someone to call on. I am the oldest and I have to take care of the rest of my family, so I decided to quit that thuggish life.”

But Kangethe wasn’t sure how he was going to do this. Then one day, he encountered some project officers from Undugu who weekly visited the neighborhood where Kangethe lived. “I was interested in hearing what they had to say. Their message somehow touched me.” They told him what they tell every young street person they meet. Stop doing drugs. Find a legal way to make money. Find a group where you can pool your resources.

Kangethe joined a Street Association in his slum and began to earn money through washing cars. By saving just 10 shillings a day (about 12 cents) he was able to rent a place to stay with some of his fellow association members. Eventually, the group elected him their chairman.

It was around this time that Undugu started an innovative new program for engaging their street associations. In 2006, Undugu was visited by an organization from South Africa that had employed former street youth as part of their regular staff. Undugu was so moved and impressed by this that they wondered why they couldn’t do the same thing.

So Undugu called the leaders of all the associations together and asked them to choose four leaders from their ranks who would work as Youth Facilitators. These young people would become employees of Undugu and serve as liasons between the street youth and the staff at Undugu. Kangethe was one of the four nominated by his peers. “They saw I was serious in what I was doing. I had a chance to rehabilitate others.”

When I asked him whether he liked his job, he explained. “I can talk to the youths on how they can quit that life and be responsible, because living in the streets ends in dying and difficulties.”  He is now in the position to deliver the same message that was once told to him.  Stop using drugs.  Earn an honest wage.  Stick together.

The inclusion of youth facilitators into the Undugu framework is one reflection of USKs attempt to teach self-advocacy to the youth in Nairobi. Kangethe’s life is a testament to the effectiveness of such a strategy.

Perhaps one of the reasons that adolescents make adults uncomfortable is because they do not mask their emotions as well as their elders. And of those emotions that pervade the psyche of an adolescent, none is more potent than anger. They get angry because they are misunderstood. They get angry because they are denied certain freedoms. They get angry because….

Johnston is smart. Johnston is powerful. Johnston is angry.

I first met Johnston, a street association member, at our Digital Storytelling  relaunch event. We invited representatives from over 20 street associations to come, learn about the program, and discuss the issues of greatest concern to them. Johnston sat in the front row, and even from the first moment he spoke, it was clear he had an edge.

“Does anyone have any questions?” I asked.

Johnston raised his hand, “Yes. My question is, what good does this program do for us? We need to eat. We need jobs.”

Like I said. Adolescents have the capacity to make adults very uncomfortable. That’s how my interaction with Johnston began, but as the afternoon progressed, I was impressed by his comments on the issues that street youth faced. I was impressed by how young people that had just met him were already deferring to him. So when it came time to choose which of 10 of the 30 students we would choose to train in DSP, despite his hostility, Martin, Joseph, Alixa, and I spent a long time debating the pros and cons of Johnston.

Then Johnston staged a rebellion concerning transportation costs, and that pretty much sealed the deal for him.

I was not oblivious to a certain irony of this. A young person feels they live in a society where they are constantly cheated out of their inheritance, a society where they have to fight for every advantage, a society where they can’t necessarily trust that adults have their best interest in mind. Why wouldn’t that young person assume the same in this moment? And when that young person speaks up, acts out, rebels, they are further alienated from that which they most want. Autonomy and authority.

We didn’t choose Johnston to represent his community, but we did choose Martin, another member of Johnston’s community. Martin is just about the antithesis of Johnston. Whereas Johnston is usually stoic, Martin almost always has a serene smile on his face. Whereas Johnston sets you on edge, Martin puts you at ease. And whereas Johnston leads from the front, and you can follow if you feel like it, Martin urges from the back and brings the whole group along.

And yet, Johnston has not let us rest. After a couple of weeks running DSP, Martin confessed that there was a bit of a rebellion underway at Ahadi. That Johnston felt like Undugu was making empty promises to their Association, promises they were not keeping. Johnston wanted Martin to stop attending the Saturday trainings. We asked Martin if he wanted to stop, and he told us that no, he didn’t.

A mediation seemed to be in order. So, I spoke with Kangethe, a youth facilitator, about quelling the rebellion at Ahadi. He went to speak with them the next day. I came to visit the community later that same day. Martin said that he thought things were a little better. Johnston, however, was “sleeping” and didn’t want to be disturbed. As Martin walked me to the bus stop he said, “People have told me he has always been like this. He doesn’t want to see anyone go past him. Get more than him.”

It is easy to myself feel angry about such a sentiment, but in his defense, why shouldn’t Johnston be after power for his own advancement without little regard for what it could mean to his communi?ty.   This is too often the model of leadership in Kenya where politicians seem all too willing to set the landscape on fire as long as it suits their needs. The difference is, the leaders of his country are old enough to know better.

Perhaps another reason that adolescents make adults uncomfortable is because they have a sense of justice that is not as “nuanced” as that of their elders. I am hard-working, therefore I deserve a job. I am smart, therefore I deserve an education. Johnston does deserve these things, as do all the youth in Kenya, and anger can be useful in fueling the fight for those rights. But at what point does that anger become too combustible to be productive? Perhaps when it starts destroying opportunities rather than forging them.

Mr. Aloys Opiyo Otieno has been working with Undugu since 1993. The Undugu Society is one of the oldest local NGOs in Kenya and one of the first to focus exclusively on children and youth rights and empowerment. It is a well know and well respected organization in Nairobi.  It was founded originally by a Catholic priest, Father Grol. The Catholic Church played a significant role in the development of Kenya and was one of the most vocal advocates for political reform leading up to the 2002 democractic elections.  Mr. Opiyo himself is a devote Catholic and sees his work at USK as a fulfillment on the Churches teachings on Social Justice. He came to Undugu because he believed that working with the youth in Kenya, “would increase my inspiration of being an advocate of the poor.”

 

In our interview, Opiyo spoke with fervor about the importance of working with homeless children and youth, talked about the evolution of Undugu over the years, and spoke of the power of Digital Storytelling to give youth a voice and hold the Kenyan government to account. He has great hopes that the Digital Storytelling Project will be an educational tool that can connect to the wider global advocacy network and in so doing help to influence policy within Kenya.  To learn more, take a look at the interview below.

When you are driving through the slums of Nairobi, it is easy for them to blend together in your mind. Listless youth roving around with little to do. Garbage littering the dusty streets. Ramshackle buildings made of sheet metal. But having visited a variety of slums where the Undugu Society has fostered Street Associations, I have come to realize that there can still be healthy communities amidst an unhealthy environment.

 Yesterday, Alixa and I went to Langatta to visit Jane Njoki, a member of one of the Undugu Street Associations and a participant in the Digital Storytelling Project. Her association, the TUFF-Gong youth empowerment group is actually one of the oldest street associations Undugu works with. (See my previous blog “The Undugu Society of Kenya: a unique model for youth empowerment” for a more detailed description of Street associations). It was formed almost a decade ago by the youth in the slum. Its purpose was both social and vocational. Socially it gave the young people in the slum an increased since of community. The group also began outreach programs related to issues such as HIV/AIDS, sanitation, and civic education. Vocationally, the group provided a livelihood to its members because the group began to function in the community as the primary waste management provider.

What might sound like a mundane and miserable task, strangely, is a joy to watch. On the day we were with them, a throng of over a dozen youth members chattered and teased one another, towed wheelbarrows through the narrow alleys, zipped in and out of houses with blue bags in hand, and enthusiastically answered our questions and posed for pictures.

When I asked the chairman of the association how the people in the community regarded the youth group, he said, “They like it when groups like this form because the there are less problems in the community.”

As Alixa and I toured the slum, there was a different feeling about the place. Neighbors were visiting with one another or talking with the youth, there was less garbage on the streets and less obvious areas of open sewage. There was even a new community project underway. Apparently a women’s group in the slum had received sponsorship from an NGO that was going to put in a water system. Men from the community had been contracted by the women and were digging two foot deep ditches throughout the slum. When I asked how long they had been working on these ditches, which were in evidence everywhere, I was shocked to learn they had just begun digging the previous day.

I asked Kengathe, a youth facilitator, if he felt like this community (where he too lives) is more healthy, stronger, less violent, than some of the other areas where Undugu works. He agreed that yes it was. When I asked him why, he thought it was because of its size. This slum is walled in by the National Wildlife Reserve on one side and the Wilson International Airport on the other which prevents it from the kind of endless sprawl you find in places like Kibera or Mathare. People know one another and can therefore keep each other accountable.

When people use the word “poverty” they are almost always using it in a material sense. To be impoverished is to be without money or food, a place to live or work. By these standards this slum and the people it it could be considered nothing but “impoverished.” But this narrow definition does not take into account the idea of social, emotional, spiritual, or psychological poverty that is so much more destructive. And it does not take into account the sense of pride and accomplishment these young people obviously feel in taking that which is dirtiest in their community and transforming it into an activity on which they can take a stand.

After lunch one day, Alixa and I were waiting at the elevator to return to the Undugu Society. As we stood talking, a woman we work with approached and teased us that when we walk down the street we don’t notice anyone around us. Apparently she had been waving at us and we had blithely ignored her and walked right on by. Without a moments thought, both Alixa and I started to regale her with stories of what happens when we make eye contact with people on the street:

1)Do you need a taxi?
2)Do you want to go on a Safari?
3)Do you know how to make a website?
4)I’m a Somali refugee, can you buy me some food?”
5)I’m a boxer, can you find me a coach?
6)I’m starting an elderly support group, do you know someone?
7)Will you marry me?
8)Will you top up my phone?
9)Can you help me make a brochure for my business?
10)Can you help me get to Uganda, my daughter was in an accident?
11)Can you donate to our school?
12)Can I have a dollar as a souvenir?
13)Can I ring you?
14)Buy a banana?
15)Buy some shoes?
16)Buy some candy?
17) I need money for school.
18)I need a computer.
19)I need some milk for my baby.
20) I want to go to America.
21)I need assistance.

This list is neither exagerated nor exhaustive.

A couple days after I arrived, I met some priests who worked in Kibera. As I was telling them about an orphanage I had just visited, I got this funny feeling that what I was saying wasn’t quite getting in. They were smiling and nodding, but I felt a disconnect between what I was saying and what they were hearing. A month later, I think I have begun to understand their response.

Here in Kenya, most people don’t judge me by the content of my character. They judge me by the color of my skin. In a sea of so many shades of brown, I stand out. At night, I practically glow in the dark. And I have been told that when many Kenyans see a white person, they see money. When Alixa and I went into the various slum areas to explain the “Digital Storytelling Project” to the youth there, it wouldn’t take long before a throng of people would form. As we drove away from one such gathering, Jones, a project officer explained, “when you involve a muzungo, expectations are very high.”

I encounter this reality with a tremendous amount of ambivalence. On the one hand, as a foreigner, I have access to resources, both material and human, that others do not. Because I’m an American, people expect me to be pushy and impatient, so things get done more quickly than they otherwise would. And I can tell myself, because I am working in the service of the Undugu Society and for the good of marginalized youth, these opportunities I am afforded are actually being handed off to them.

On the other hand, this power is not just handed to the well-intentioned volunteer. It is waiting for even the most unscrupulous of muzungo and handed to them like a souvenir as they get off the plane.

I had a friend that served in the Peace Corp in Zambia for two years. She came back with a stalwart conviction that most of the aid that came to Africa was actually counter productive. What seemed like a puzzling sentiment to me before I arrived, now seems more understandable. While it is not true across the board, there does seem to be a default patron/recipient dynamic that occurs here. What’s more, I wonder if the West didn’t supply so much aid, whether the Kenyan people would hold their own government more culpable. After all, if the countries in the West are always supplying just enough token support to quell the tumultuous masses, what motivation does a corrupt government have to invest in economic and social improvements?

So where does that leave someone like me…besides hiding behind a pair of sunglasses?  How do you compartmentalize without losing your compassion? I’m really not certain. I don’t think the answer is cutting ties with the country or the continent. And I do think the Advocacy Project Model is a good one because 1) It builds a relationship with the organization served and 2) it attempts to make visible the grassroots work in a community that is already locally underway.

And maybe that is part of the solution. Glow in the dark. Draw some attention, and then when you break eye contact, slip back into the growing crowd and let those to whom the country belongs walk through the newly opened doors.

If you want to meet the Masai, the nomadic peoples of Kenya, you need not go far. No safari to Masai Mara is necessary. You need only to go to Nairobi National Airport. Here on the wide open spaces where planes make their approach, Masai graze their goats. This kind of Juxtaposition is a common occurrence here in Kenya where you might watch Michael Jackson tributes on TV in a dirt floor cantina or sing country music with a bus full of Irish students on a dusty Kenyan road.

This blending of traditional and modern, local and global ways of being is not unique to Kenya. In a shrinking world, you never know what kind of odd pairings and proximities will arise.

Related to the relativity of distance is a a certain quirk of Kenyan culture that, depending on the day, is alternately a source of amusement and irritation: the phrase, “Not far.” Not far could mean around the corner. Not far could mean 5 kilometers. And though I recently made a pact with Alixa that I would never again take “Not Far” as a legitimate answer, 3 days later, we were trekking through goats and Masai on our way to a site visit. Had I known just how far “not far was” I would have brought a picnic and taken a lunch break in the middle of the pastoral landscape.

“Not far” on the horizon, though, is far superior to the hypothetically not far. Recently on a weekend visit to Nakuru, we asked for directions to the Nakumatt. The woman pointed down the road and said, “It’s not far.” 20 minutes later, we asked another woman whether we were close to the Nakumatt and she laughed. “Here is Nakuru? We don’t have a Nakumatt.” And she laughed again. Hypothetically if we kept walking, given the proliferation of Nakumatts, I suppose we would have found one before we reached Uganda.

Not far. Not long. Not much. It all depends and context and expectation. So on the same weekend I searched for an apocryphal Nakumatt, I clung to the back of piki piki as it careened up a gravel road to the top of Menegai Crater. Helmets. Speed Limits. Weight capacity. Driver Safety. All culturally relative, right? How far is the top? Not far.

As we raced up the road, walking down the same gravel road was a group on foot. Mixed in with the Kenyans were two Muzungus that I noted and quickly dismissed until Alixa (who, did I mention, was clinging to the same piki piki) yelled back to me “that was Luna and Kate! That was Luna and Kate.”

In a country over 200,000 square miles with 37 million people, and only four advocacy project volunteers, what are the odds that one pair would meet another pair on a remote gravel road in Nakuru? Not odd. Not far. Not long. Not much.

The Undugu Society, founded in 1974, has a long history of empowering youth and their communities through a variety of programs. These include informal schools, a fair trade shop, and community micro-finance. One of their primary functions is to serve street youth through the formation of Street Associations. The way an employee of Undugu described it to me is that homeless youth around the city usually live in groups at a “base.” They sleep there, but during the day they travel to different places in order to try and “hustle” a living. Some of these activities might be legitimate, like working as a porter or selling wares, others might not be, like snatching purses or cellphones.

Once Undugu locates these groups around the city, they assign a social worker called a “Project Officer” to monitor and advise the group. This officer encourages the “association” of youth to do a variety of things that might improve their livelihood. First, they ask them to raise enough money to register themselves with the government as a Community Based Organization (CBO). This allows them certain rights like the right to assemble, have a bank account, and function without harassment by the police. Second, they ask them to elect leadership in the group that includes a chairman, vice chairman, secretary, and treasurer. This gives the group an organizing structure and a system for making decisions and saving money. Thirdly, they encourage them to pool their creative and material resources into an entrepreneurial activity the might provide them with a more steady income. This might be a car washing business, clearing a garbage plot to plant and harvest crops, or collecting recyclable materials for resale.

Undugu has identified more than 140 such associations around the city and the number is ever increasing. Each of these associations is at a different stage of development. Some suffer from a lack of leadership, are plagued by issues with drug abuse, and may be dominated by members who are predatory opportunists. Others are highly functioning, have a strong sense of community, and have successfully started a money making venture that gives them both a study source of income and a sense of accomplishment. When Undugu identifies individuals within these groups that have particular potential, they may hire them to be “youth facilitators.” These young people are then employees of Undugu that assist and advise the social workers assigned to each region. They are a liason between Undugu and the community and also can help identify additional youth groups in the area that Undugu may not yet be aware of.

I feel the Undugu model of youth empowerment is both unique and pragmatic.  It also fits in well with the evolution of the mission of the organization.  Over the last decade, Undugu has shifted its focus from being strictly a service provider to becoming more of an advocacy organization. It was during this transition that they formed a relationship with the Advocacy Project as they sought a way to blend their older programs with new innovations. It is their hope that the Digital Storytelling Project that began last year can become more infused throughout the organization because it affords a unique opportunity for traditionally marginalized youth to participate in self-advocacy.

With the help of the project officers and youth facilitators we selected DSP participants from 7 different associations. We visited all of these associations beforehand to tell them about the purpose of DSP and what it could offer their association. Although we would only select one person from each community, this individual would be responsible for not just telling their story, but telling the story of the association as a whole. We also chose these associations in close proximity to each other so that through the interaction of these selected students, the associations they belonged to would benefit from a wider network of support and a wider range of ideas.

Though youth are often accused in the local media of being the source of disruption and violence, these young people in DSP seek to tell a different story. That of youth in poor communities who, despite the obstacles, are seeking constructive pathways towards civic participation and community empowerment.

When I began teaching in Baltimore City in 2003, it turned out to be an immersion course for me in urban culture. I taught my students SAT vocabulary words like “benevolent” and they taught me Baltimore vocabulary words like  “boo lovin.” Often times when students would introduce me to their friends, they would say, “This is my cuz.” I quickly learned that this was not a term reserved only for a literal cousin but could be used for best friends, kids that had grown up together, or other close bonds that transcended common friendship. I have recently had cause to reflect on this because here in Kenya, when young people find out I am an American, the most common thing I hear is, “Obama is my cousin!”

When Kenyans say this, it could mean they are Luo, the tribe of Obama’s father. It could mean they are from the Kisumu area where some of Obama’s relatives still live. Or, much like my Baltimore students, it could have a more transcendent meaning: that despite his distance, his power, his wealth, they feel for him a deep trust and affection like that of a family member.

Since his election, some speculate that Kenyan’s affection for Obama might be on the wane after what they see as a series of snubs -- the  cancellation of direct flights between Nairobi and the US, the President’s failure to invite the Kenyan President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga to the White House during a recent visit to Washington DC, and his choice to make Ghana his first stop on the African continent.  This weekend when interviewed by allAfrica, Obama went futher and baldly criticized Kenya for its rampant corruption and failure to implement reforms. In fact, just last week Transparency International published the East African Bribery Index in which Kenya was cited as the most corrupt state in Sub-Saharan Africa.  But while those officials who are guilty of this corruption may be indignant at Obama’s harsh words, the young people I have met are not. In fact, they agree with him about their own politicians.

Perhaps this in part explains the deep resonance between the President and young Kenyans. About 70% of all Kenyans are under the age of thirty and the same sort of criticism that was leveled at Obama during the US election campaign is used here to block their advancement in this country: They are too young. The have little experience. They are not a reliable or a known entity.

But this presents an intriguing opportunity for Mr Obama and his Administration. Given that Africa, not just Kenya, has so many young people, the Obama administration should perhaps define its interaction with the Continent in generational, rather than national, terms.  And the sooner Obama can capitalize on this generational good will the better. Youth, after all, aren’t known for their attention span.

How might this be accomplished?  In speaking with my young friends here in Kenya, I’ve coming up with the following:

1)Encourage a Youth Quota System in parliamentary elections similar to the gender quotas in place in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

2)Change the “faith-based initiatives” of the Bush era to “youth-based initiatives” that would supply federal money to projects and programs developed by young people for young people.

3)Increase the profile of youth programs in the US, like Model United Nations, and encourage American students to partner with students from African (and other developing world) countries that they are representing.

4)Create an office within the US Department of Education that encourages and supports partnerships between schools in the US and schools in developing countries, like the DFID Global School Partnership in Britain.

5) Retool the mission of the Peace Corps to focus more specifically on youth empowerment.

I’ve been running these ideas past some of the street kids in Nairobi you can hear some of their reflections in this video.

I would love to hear other ideas. What policies, programs, projects, and practices might the Obama administration begin to enact that could revolutionize youth civic participation world wide? How can US policy encourage more youth to identify and interact with their cousins across tribal lines?

During the post election riots of 2008, much of the anger and violence in Nairobi about what many in Kenya perceived as a stolen election was perpetuated on the Kikuyu tribe (the tribe of the newly “elected” President Kibaki). Looming over the slum of Kibera is a seven story building highly visible and widely known to be owned by a Kikuyu. During the violence, a mob approached this building prepared to burn it to the ground. The only thing that stopped them was that on the very top floor of this building was a community radio station called Pamoja Radio. “We told them that this station belonged to all of them. They agreed and went elsewhere.” This from Antony Nyandiek, the 23 year old station manager who showed us around the radio station.

This moment is emblematic of just how significant the medium of radio is in the developing world. It is cheap, it is pervasive, and it is therefore powerful. In recognition of this, aid organizations, including USAID, have begun to fund local radio that supports civic society and community empowerment. Because the Digital Story Telling Project at the Undugu Society has similar goals, we were visiting Pamoja with the hopes of building a partnership between their work and ours.

Before arriving at the station, I had come up with a list of questions, many of which centered around Pamoja’s willingness to do youth radio. Then I met the staff…who were all youth themselves. No one was older than 27. In fact, instead of citing the token youth radio programs that they had, they instead pointed out segments of their programming meant for, “the older people” in Kibera.

Pamoja is only a year and a half old, but it already is a well known entity in Kibera with an ever expanding line up of locally relevant radio programs. These include shows on drug abuse, women’s issues, HIV/AIDS, and a new program meant to deal specifically with youth perpetuated crime and violence. All of their reporters are young people from Kibera who are daily in the community in order to gather the local news.

On Saturdays, Pamoja hosts a competition that features local artists; the winning artist (based on call in votes) wins a free recording session with a studio in Nairobi. And because the station broadcasts mostly in Kiswahili, this again increases its accesibility to the impoverished populations that stretch out to the horizon on all sides of the building.

Along with us on the visit were Martin and Joseph, two participants in last year’s Digital Storytelling project. As we were moving through the cramped rooms of Pamoja, Joseph, who is shy about speaking English, kept saying, “This is very exciting. This is very exciting.” And it is. This station transmits a very important message well beyond the strength of its FM signal. That message is that if you give young people a voice, they will more often than not use it in creative and constructive ways. Moreover, if it was able to stop a mob once before, perhaps there is hope for a more peaceful election in Kenya the next time around.

The one room house is packed shoulder to shoulder with young people, all 18 to 25. I am at the officers meeting for SMART Club, a community based organization founded shortly after the 2008 post election riots. Its goal is to promote civic education among the youth in Kibera some of which were participants some victims of the election violence.

Kenneth Odogo Owade, the club’s founder, sits perched on the arm of one of the overcrowded sofas. He is bleary eyed because he worked three shifts in a row at the YMCA starting the previous afternoon. He will go back to work tonight, go straight to class the next day, return to Kibera for a nap, and start the process again earning in a month the equivalent of 80 US Dollars. Despite his weariness, Ken is never too tired to talk passionately about the importance of this club or the immense challenges that stand in the way of a young persons survival in a place like Kibera, a city like Nairobi, and a country like Kenya.

The name Kibera is notorious; the second largest “temporary settlement” in all of Africa, it is less than 700 acres but houses an estimated 1 million people. Despite the notoriety of Kibera, I once heard Kibera called the “most peaceful” slum in Nairobi. When I asked Henry, another attendee of the meeting about this, he at first responded with incredulity, but then after the brief pause conceded, “well, in Kibera, you won’t get mugged during the day.” At night it is a different story.

As a Muzungo (white person) I am told daily that I am a perpetual target in Nairobi and must always leave Kibera well before twilight. But squeezed shoulder to shoulder with these energetic, well-spoken young people who alternately debate and tease one another, I do not feel fear, pity, shock, or any other emotion that people who visit Kibera the first time often report experiencing. Despite the poverty and crime, the youth in this room are exactly what the world has been looking for. They are the segment of the “youth bulge” that could keep their country from plunging into the civil chaos that has plagued their neighbors Somalia, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Sudan.

Before 2008, much of the world took for granted that Kenya was a bastion of stability in the Sub-Saharan Africa. People inside and outside the country reacted with shock at just how quickly the violence spiraled out of control. Conflicts that at first appeared to be tribal feuding, it later was confirmed, were in part the result of groups of youth that had been bribed by politicians first for their votes, then for their violence. Kenneth himself at the onset went out into the city center to take pictures in hopes of documenting the atrocities, “but I took five pictures and I had to stop. It was too much.” He instead went back to Kibera and did his best to calm people and evacuate members of targeted groups to safety. In his house he hid a woman who was a member of the targeted Kikuyu tribe, telling her if people came after her, to claim to be his wife. They came, she did, she survived.

Ken is exceptional, but he is not the exception. As the young people around me discuss micro-finance, team building, creating a budget, I think about an article I recently read entitled “Kibera youth always primed for violence.” Martyn Drakard a reporter from The Observer, a Ugandan newspaper, writes about the train track that run through Kibera being torn up in protest of recent tensions between the two countries. In it he claims:

“Kibera youth can be divided into several categories: those who traipse every morning to the factories five miles away hoping to catch the eye of a sympathetic foreman; those who stay in Kibera and run or are trying to start projects, such as selling water, managing public toilets and showers, disposing of waste; those who stay at home doing nothing; and the others who are ready at a moment’s notice to take to the streets or alleys in pursuit of some cause.”

But can the youth in this room where I am sitting be easily squeezed into any of these above categories? It is convenient when you are speeding through Kibera on a high-powered train or hurrying out of Kibera before sunset to miss yet another category of youth. The kind who, in the words of Kenneth, “Don’t let Kibera be on you. You be on Kibera.” You cannot see signs of Kibera externally. They don’t look poor, or “primed for violence,” but there is a fire within them to be on Kibera, on Nairobi, on Kenya to start opening pathways out of poverty and marginalization. To give them a platform for participation that is more permanent than the settlement in which they live. To pay attention to the youth before they tear up more than the train tracks.