Made in Kibera Jewellery

Monday, April 9, 2012

Kibera Women Economic Empowerment Advocacy Video

The Kibera Self Help Groups have created this very simple video out of very limited resources and equipment to advocate for their effort to improve life conditions of their family and children.
Kibera Women Economic Empowerment (KWEE) wanted to experiment the video tool to engage people to create change. The have made use of the free training resources available at WITNESS (www.witness.org) mainly starting to concentrate on the communication strategy of the video. They plan to have more people getting involved possibly supporting them in making more elaborate and professional videos in the future.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

How do children and young people survive in Kibera? What choices do they have?

KIBERA KID is a movie made by American filmaker Nathan Collett shot entirely on location in Kibera, with a cast from Kibera. It tells the story of Otieno, a twelve year old orphan living in Kibera with the Razors gang, his substitute family. Otieno has to choose between a life of crime or redemption.

KIBERA KID has won seven international awards, including the prestigious student EMMY, has been screened at 38 international film festivals and has been featured by media throughout the world.

Teachers, professors, community organizers and religious groups have used KIBERA KID to connect with the reality of everyday life in Kibera, Africa's largest slum.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Made in Kibera Jewellery Project

Kibera Women Economic Empowerment (KWEE) is a women’s organization in Kenya that launched an initiative for the setting up Women Self Help Groups in Kibera. As we have seen, Kibera is located in Nairobi and is possibly the largest urban slum in Africa.

The goal of the project is economic independence for the women. Each self help group will work towards creating and selling traditional jewellery and handicrafts from Kenya. The vision is to find a way for unemployed mothers to earn sufficient income to send their children to school and achieve an acceptable standard of living. Kenya does not have a free school system and therefore parents must pay a large proportion of their income for their children to go to school.

Life can be very difficult in Kibera as this documentary from Amnesty International shows us. Watch The Women at Kibera at:

Funds for the project are limited. We invite you to support the project with advocacy, donations and voluntary participation.

So please blog, post, mail, sms, twitter whatever you may think about and tale action!

After a pilot phase we have created a catalogue of fashionable jewellery created by women from Kibera in their own design and making use of traditional methods to work local raw materials.

Traditional Kenyan jewelry is some of the most beautiful and artistic jewelry in the world. It is typically made from brightly colored beads and stones. Tribal Kenyan people tend to only wear this expensive and amazing jewelry on special occasions such as weddings and other ceremonies.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Once upon a time a forest.

Kibera means forest in the original Nubian language. Now it is possibly the largest slum in Africa.

What is Kibera?

Let's see what Wikipedia says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibera

Let's listen to a voice from the forest

http://www.rscj.org/node/36

Kibera means forest in the original Nubian language. It is a place with a unique history. It was originally part of Maasai grazing land. However, between 1912 and 1928, the British colonials settled there the Sudanese Nubian soldiers who fought in W.W. in service to the British Army. This was to compensate them for the service they did so well. But Kibera grew beyond imagination. As Nairobi expanded, many people came from the countryside in search of work. Kibera has become an attractive place for living, because it is within walking distance of the city center and the industrial area. It is an ethnically mixed neighborhood: tenants are of the Luo, Kikuyu, Luhya, Kamba, Kisii, and other ethnic groups, while the landlords are mainly Nubians and Kikuyus. The people of Kibera represent a melting pot of Kenyans from all regions, origins and communities. These people have no common background or aspirations, but have to find a way of living together in this “forest”.

The East African Railway line from Mombasa to the Uganda border passes through Kibera, and splits the slum into two areas: the upper and the lower. People walk along the railway, as well as sell food, used clothes, shoes, household equipment and anything that can give them some income. The railway line is also used as a dumping place for any refusal in the slum and from outside the slum. There are 11 villages in Kibera, with a population of approximately 700,000 people. According to researchers, Kibera is the largest informal settlement in Kenya and possibly the largest slum in Africa.

There is a joy in Kibera that will surprise you

Another voice from Kibera is that of Sabrina Henry who says:

"We stopped to buy some candies for the children and gave them away along our route. Here I borrowed my roommate’s 17 – 35 mm zoom lens to capture an angle that implies the vastness of the slums but focuses squarely on the children that call it home. There is a joy in Kibera that will surprise you. It comes from the feeling of community we’ve lost a long time ago in Western society and I think, from a really simple truth that we don’t need as much to be happy as we think we do".

Read full story and see the photos at:

http://sabrinahenry.com/2010/01/28/kibera-life-in-the-slums/

Now let's watch ourselves and take a Walk through Kibera

This is a video from the Kibera Slum Foundation, whose mission is to improve living conditions in Kibera Slums, Nairobi Kenya. They need OUR help! Learn more at www.kSLUM.org