The Kibarani Dump Site Children and Nursery School
Kibarani, Mombasa, Kenya
CURRENT SITUATION
Outside the city of Mombasa, along the highway that leads to the airport, is a big dumpsite and district known as Kibarani. This is where all of the rubbish from Mombasa ends up, this where the long-haul lorry drivers are based, and this is where thousands of people live, living off the rubbish. Kibarani is considered one of the poorest, most dangerous places in and around Mombasa. No one speaks English or has a job. The rate of assault and rape is extremely high and it is dangerous to walk alone in the area, even during the day.
The rubbish dump is indeed a dump. There is no sorting system, no incineration and no organized recycling. All the rubbish from the city is literally dumped in a big pile out there, and people live in the middle of it, and children play in it, get hurt in it and get sick from it.
The size of the population of Kibarani is unknown, and the people who live there do not have jobs. They eat any leftover food they find, and some of them collect and sell plastic and metal to buy food and clean drinking water. It is very humid along the coast of Kenya. Combined with high year-round temperatures, the rubbish rots quickly and smells terrible. There is an indescribable stench in Kibarani, and how anybody can live there defies the imagination.
Alongside the dumpsite is the actual Kibarani neighborhood. There is a small brick painted building, which is now run as a nursery school by a local woman.
The children are enthusiastic: they want to sing, play and learn, but it is hard for them to stay focused, mainly because they don't eat everyday and when they do, the food is bad. They are clearly malnourished and are not light, like underfed children. They have bloated stomachs like them, but they are heavy as rocks, almost impossible to carry. They are sick, their skin is reddish, and some of them have gaping wounds from the garbage they roam around in. Diarrhea, ringworm and infection are everyday problems, and many children do not even make it to the school because of sickness or because their parents make them stay at home to work and take care of younger siblings.
Socially the children are a big challenge, too, because Kibarani is a place devoid of energy. The children see and feel a lot of aggression and violence, and they have to grow up quickly to survive. They imitate the aggression they see displayed by adults in their own behavior amongst themselves in school, and the teacher has to spend a lot of time breaking up fights. Never the less, there is a huge need for attention, affection and tenderness in the children's behavior. They surround outsiders coming to visit the school and beg to be held and cuddled, even the bigger children will stand in front of you, thumb in mouth, saying 'baby, baby', hoping to be shown affection as they have never known it. Three-year-olds will carry their 6-months-old siblings, helplessly dropping them in an effort to care for them.
In June 2008 took over the daily running of the nursery school. The children started to get fed breakfast and lunch every day. In the beginning 40 children attended every day. After a week there were 80. As of today's date, 110 children attend the school every day. The team in Kibarani now consists of two cooks, two teachers a social worker and a nurse with assistants. With a team like that in Kibarani every day the children starts to get visually better. They get treated for sicknesses on a daily basis when needed and now have the energy to start to learn.
WHAT 100% TO THE CHILDREN WANTS TO DO IN KIBARANI
After visiting Kibarani a couple of times it is clear to us that this is a two-tiered challenge. It is very easy to help and make a difference right here and now for the children. They are desperate just to survive; the way things are at present. At the same time, it's a huge task to make a long-lasting difference for the children out there, but a task we are willing to undertake.
• We want to improve the school facilities
We want to build a new latrine because the old one is starting to fall apart. Without a new latrine our work will be diffecult because we cannot surstain the good work we are doing with keeping the children healthy. Therefor its important we get donations to build a new one. Since the number of children in the school has increased a lot since we took over the running of the nursery school it is even more urgent that we get the building restored.
• We want to provide the children with treatment and medication
All the children were tested for AIDS/HIV in 2007. Fortunately only one child tested positive at the time, but there are many other types of sicknesses that the children are exposed to and struggle with on a daily basis that need acute treatment. Diarrhea, malaria and measles are the causes of the high mortality rate among children in Kibarani. It is relatively easy to treat infection, inflammation and ringworm, which at the same time help the children to resist many of the other challenges they face in life.
We want to pay for all the children to be treated for immediate illnesses, give them vaccinations and make sure that those who are HIV-positive get the proper treatment and medication. We want to use posters and flyers, written in Swahili, to inform the community's adults about disease prevention.
We want to raise funds to build or rent a room that can function as a clinic, so our nurse and her assistants can get better work conditions and the children and adults of Kibarani can be treated in more hygienic and private surroundings. Today consultations take place outside the school on a bench.
• Children with special needs
At the moment we support the treatment of two children with polio-relating handicaps. They receive physiotherapeutic treatment at a hospital and in their home every week. But we know that more children need treatment.
Furthermore we offer treatment to the children who suffer from umbilical hernias. These children will get surgery, receive medical treatment, and be followed closely by our nurse. We provide medical treatment and consultation to children suffering from sexually transmitted diseases, which we meet far too often.
(Background) The present sanitary facility in Kibarani
• We want to provide the children with food and clean water
The top priority is to feed the children, as this is first step to getting them away from the dump. Giving them food will increase their quality of life, and decrease their level of stress, as they will not have to work all day just to eat. Giving them clean water will prevent diseases, thus decreasing medicine costs later on.
HOW WE INTEND TO DO THIS
100% to the Children consists of a team in Denmark and a team on the ground in Kenya. In Denmark our primary focus is to continue establishing and developing the organization as a alternative, sustainable and transparent NGO, and to raise funds for our projects, as well as the administration costs connected with getting the aid to the projects.
We develop our organization by keeping updated on what happens in our area of work, by collecting updated data and knowledge, attending conferences etc. and by making use of councelling offered to smaller and bigger organizations and charities in Denmark by 'Projektrådgivningen, Århus'. This way we create the best foundation for coordinating projects with as much quality and sustainablility as possible.
Through 'Projektrådgivningen' we can also apply for public funds within the Danish foreign ministry. There has been drawn up a strategy to ensure the most efficient and relevant support from the Danish government to the civil society organizations working with initatives in developing countries. Download the Civil Society Strategy in English.
We raise funds from both private and corporate sponsors. Both in Denmark and the rest of the world. In Kibarani 100% to the Children is physically present every day, by representatives of either our experienced and qualified local team or Danish project coordinators, or both, to evaluate the proces of the project and make sure the funds are being used in the way we promise our sponsors. This means that a representative from Denmark is present min. 3 times a year and when we are there, our work consists mainly of the following: collaborating closely with the community, the Chief, the council of elders and team on the ground, and observing the children’s progress, so that we can all work together to close in on one of our goals: that the people of Kibarani will be able to lift and develop the project themselves. Furthermore we make use of sparring with experienced local entrepreneurs from the other projects 100% to the Children support, about our work in Kibarani.
Our goals with the Kibarani project are dynamic and changes as the project progresses and the organization and sponsor-support grows. We re-evaluate the project on a regular basis and have made collaboration agreements with the community for one year, the current agreement to be revised June 1, 2009. 2008 was about immediate survival for many of the children and their caretakers. Parallel with our 'Emergency Poverty Relief''-efforts a lot of energy was put into finding a structure for the collaboration. E.g what can the community expect from 100% to the Children and what do we and the sponsors expect in return.
In 2009 we can start focusing our energy on the longer perspective of the project. We are going to start the process of organizing Kibarani as an independent local partner and start up implementation of preventive and educational initiatives within
the food program and health program, such as nutrition counselling, specifically for the pregnant and mothers, information on disease prevention, vaccinations as well as educating on child upbringing for all parents, among these violent abuse and incest and child labour. Regarding the school itself, we hope to improve the facilities and expand so that we can include more children of a broader age scale during the year.
Lastly we hope to enter into a clearer collaboration with the kenyan official authorities (Child Welfare, School Commision) and the Danish Embassy in Kenya.
We will report back to our donors and keep them up to date on developments and document precisely how their donations are being used. |
