Umande Trust

Florence has been working at the Tosha 2 bio centre for the past 3 months but already had so much information about her job to contribute to our series. The Tosha 2 bio centre opened in 2007 and is run only by women. Like most bio centres, tosha 2 has a few toilets and a shower, the only shower in the area, and cost 5ksh to use. Upstairs, this bio centre has 5 rooms, which are currently unoccupied, but sometimes houses families that need a place to stay. Tosha 2 also has a large tank of water which holds about 800 liters of water and costs about 700ksh to fill each day. Florence says that her biggest challenge is that this bio centre is less popular than the others because it was on strike and closed for a long while and is not as well known in the area as some of the other bio centres. That being said, the company Shofco has a relationship with this bio centre, paying them some money every month to allow their workers to come in and use the bio centre when they need to. This increas

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 wat

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 exa

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