Umande Trust

Friday morning, Umande trust in partnership with WASH interviewed ten women on the struggle and harassment they face trying to fetch water for their families. Most of these women were in their early twenties and all of them were mothers. All of these women told stories about how they had been harassed either by men on their way to fetch water or the water cartels themselves. The water cartels, the people who run the centers where water is fetched from, often take these women’s money without giving them water and beat and harass the women who complain about there being not enough water or the water being dirty. Every women who had been interviewed seemed to have had money stolen from them from the water cartels forcing them to return home without money or water. These stories were more of the tame ones when it comes to the struggle these women face. A lot of them told stories of harassment and rape by men on the street as they were heading to get water. In Kibera, there is a high rate...

Upon entering the Starra Bio Centre, one would assume that this centre is just the same as all of the others neighboring it in Kibera. But once you walk past the circular centre itself, you are greeted by a large tent filled with plants, a greenhouse. This is where Joseph has worked for the past two years, and like his coworkers at other centres, Joseph spends most of his day cleaning and collecting pay. But he also has an extra job, tending to the greenhouse, planting, sowing, and harvesting the tomatoes and green peppers they sell there. Joseph enjoys earnings  living this way and says that it is a much fairer job than his previous one as a servant. He also says there are many challenges to his job. He often has to deal with abusive customers who refuse to pay after using the bio centre. Joseph says that he does not want to fight these thugs and often has to let them go without paying. Another challenge Joseph faces is the water scarcity in the area, and finds it frustrating that...

On an average day Kennedy spends his days taking care of the kidiot bio center in Kibera. His job description includes but is not limited to front desk work, cleaning, and making sure everything runs smoothly. One of the reasons Kennedy likes this particular Bio center is because it is so environmentally friendly. Kennedy also mentioned that this particular Bio center brought the first toilets to this area of Kibera! Kennedy enjoys being part of this effort of providing sanitary and cheap toilets to this area. For Kennedy, this Bio center has made  tremendous effect in his life because it's something he is passionate about as he has learned so much about the environment and has also helped him to earn a living wage. Kennedy feels like working at the bio centre has made him more environmentally aware and he is proud to be helping an organization that promotes action against climate change and environmental sustainability.

Easily spottable from any matatu driving in on the gravel entrance to Kibera, the Umande Trust building and attached bio-centre stands three stories tall overlooking a busy road filled with people, umbrellas, shops, and cars. While the top two floors of the building is office space, the bottom floor is a complete bio-centre with 4 toilets on each side and 2 showers in total. This bio-centre also comes with a fridge filled with soda for passersby who may want a treat. The caretaker of this bio-centre is Stell a, a 29 year old woman with three children at home. This is Stella’s second month working at the bio-centre here and in her first mont h here says that she considers her job fair.  Stella spends most of her day sitting on a white plastic chair outside of the steps of the bio-centre, collecting the five shilling fair for using the toilet and the fifty shilling fair to get a soda. She also cleans the bio-centre two to three times per day. While she is not sure of the...

On March 9th, Umande was able to send representatives to the Ngaru Girls High School in Kerugoya, an all girls boarding school a little over two hours from Nairobi. The facilities here (a bio-digester 84m3, renovated 20 toilets, biogas piping and burners) were built last fall and opened for use since November 2016. As one of the several boarding schools utilizing the bio-centers they were pleased to see the facilities up and running efficiently. Mikayla, our new intern, and Gladys, our sanitation marketer, were able to tour the property and meet with two kitchen staff members, Muthi and Mwaii, the school nurse, Pascaline, and a member of the cleaning staff, Margaret. The Umande Team were impressed with the overall cleanliness of the toilets and the kitchen and the excellent conditions the infrastructure installed by the organization were in. Through an open conversation with the staff members they were able to gather information on the success and the possible future improveme...

Today Umande held the first of many meetings for the Women's Voices project champions. The 20 women champions met with some of the Umande staff at the Harlequins Suites Hotel. The meeting started by having all the women introduce themselves, followed by an introduction of Umande Trust, and some of the other projects that the organization is working on. After the introductions, each woman was given a questionnaire which asked questions about their local government, how involved the women have been in the local government in the past, and the positive and negative aspects of their local government. After reading the questionnaires it was clear that most of the women in the room felt like they did not have a voice in their community, or no one was listening. That is why this program, Women's Voices ICT Choices is so important for women in the community. This project teaches and encourages women to share their thoughts and ideas and gives them leadership roles within their own com...

Umande Trust is in the process of launching a new project that aims to increase the representation of Women's voices when making decisions about their own communities, specifically within Kibera. To do this, Women Champions will be selected from the community, and these women will be trained to be liaisons between local governments and the community they are representing. The Women Champions will provide other women in the community with relevant information and facilitate group discussions on the issues women want to discuss and share ideas about. On Friday, October 28th a meeting was held at the Tosha One biocenter in Kibera to discuss the Women's Voices ICT Choices project and specifically, how to choose the women champions. Project representatives from Umande Trust lead the meeting, and it was attended by around 30 community members and representatives from other local organizations. At the meeting, they discussed the project, and who exactly the women champions would be....