Garbage Slum

You can know they exist, you can look at pictures or hear stories but there are no words to describe the reality of a garbage slum. Peoples entire livelihood depending on the trash from surrounding areas. 

I had my first visit to the Gioto Garbage slum where over 6,000 people live. It sounds awful but it is worse than even imaginable. The smell that permeates the area is so vile it makes your stomach turn and your head hurt. Mounds of trash piled everywhere with people of all ages, from small children to the elderly digging through them to find anything they can live off of. Scraps of food, materials to build their homes with, anything that could be crafted and sold. 

How does anyone get to this point in life? The stories that came from just a few of the families that lived there were dreadful. A single mom with 14 kids. She became pregnant at the age of 11 after being raped. Trying to support her baby led her to prostitution, the outcome being 13 more kids and infected with AIDS. Now she is immobile and it is her kids that are digging through the trash to find food. 

Profile surveys of the kids that have been done by past volunteers show many of them go months without being bathed, weeks without clean water and actual food (such as rice, beans or porridge), and most beaten daily. The majority of children are conceived from rape and most already infected with AIDS. 

Kenya holds the top 3 garbage slums in the world. The largest is home to 171,000 people outside of Nairobi. I’m not even ready to think of a city built on trash and hate to think that many people have no other choices. We (Fadhili organization) try to do as much as possible to get the children out of this lifestyle by raising money to send them to boarding school and for those not as lucky we supply as many as possible with clean water and a meal. Its not nearly enough to make a dent but its a step in the right direction.