Kenya: Women must no longer ask for permission from anyone

At the Koinonia Community’s 'Salama' Center in Nairobi, Kenya, young mothers are learning vocational skills and striving for self-reliance after enduring harrowing pasts. The stories of Daisy, Eva, and Damaris offer a detailed look at how one learns to see a different side of Nairobi’s famous informal settlement.

It seems that the children here never stop crying. These are the children of the young women we care for at the 'Salama' Center. They wait for their mothers to finish the training sessions on sewing, cooking, hairdressing, and beauty care, that are conducted every morning.

These courses last between three and six months, yet they often transform lives. The 37 people involved including our beneficiaries and staff all hail from Kibera, the largest informal settlement in Africa of approximately half a million people who live here, packed into an area of roughly 2.5 square kilometers.

Although proper housing is slowly beginning to appear and initial river cleanup efforts have started, this remains a place of profound poverty. Most residents live in shacks lacking toilets or running water. Those who can, tap into electricity and lighting via illegal connections—which, however, frequently spark fires that destroy the shacks. For instance, just the night before our visit, the center’s water pump was stolen, and they had to deal with a water leak.

A welcome from Fr Kizito at the Salama Center

Fr. Renato Kizito Sesana welcomed us with these explanations to the 'Salama' Center, a facility established in 2018 by his community, Koinonia, to assist women in this vast informal settlement in Nairobi.

Located just a few kilometers from the city center, the area has grown to include countless corrugated iron houses, alleyways, shops, schools, churches, and small businesses. The United Nations has documented the presence of open sewers, inadequate drainage systems, and a lack of sanitation facilities relative to the population size.

Furthermore, studies conducted in Kibera reveal a heavy burden of respiratory diseases, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, diarrheal illnesses, and other infectious diseases.

The inspiring story of Daisy Ogola

The stories we encounter confirm this one in particular of Daisy Ogola. We first met her on the ground floor of the Salama Center, teaching an English lesson to children. Later, we met her again on the terrace, a space soon to become a recreation area for the children.

This is where Daisy shares her story with us. Hers is the story of a woman who, at the age of 23, an age when one typically grapples with dreams and uncertainty, a time when recklessness and ambition collide, often leading to a sense of inadequacy found herself a mother of two, a boy and a girl. It is the story of a woman who had been cast out by her family after news of her first pregnancy broke.

She had completed Form 4, the final year of secondary school in Kenya, and had still hoped to continue her education. 'However, my parents were shocked by my pregnancy. They asked, 'How could this happen? You haven't even gone to university yet; you haven't achieved your goals.' They told me that this was the path I had chosen and that I would have to live my life this way on my own.'

For Daisy, those words meant facing life day by day, with nowhere to go. She then went to live with the man who had fathered her child.

Their first child was born. Shortly after, a second pregnancy followed. They decided to move from a small village in western Kenya to Nairobi specifically, to Kibera.

Upon arriving at Salama, the center did not and could not simply erase her past. That is not possible. Above all, Daisy says that the father of her children does not want her to work or build her own economic independence lest she no longer need him one day.

'I think he is jealous. He fears that if I got a job, I wouldn't rely on him anymore. He called Salama and asked them not to help me, so that I would remain dependent on him. But he isn't someone you can really count on, he tells you one thing today and changes his mind tomorrow,' she recounted.

So, when we ask her if she can still envision a future with the man, her answer comes without hesitation, 'If I could, I would prefer to live alone with my children.' This is why certain wounds remain unhealed; indeed, they are shifting Kenyan society's perspective on the family.

Family

Family is a word that Daisy struggles to define or even fully grasp, partly due to the choices her parents made. We ask if she has seen her parents again or heard from them, and if she can forgive them.

'I will forgive them because they are my parents. What happened, happened. But part of that history still troubles me. We speak on the phone occasionally these days, but the last time I saw them was when I left; I haven't seen them for three years,' the 23-year-old tells us.

And yet, there is something about this whole story that holds a note of hope. First of all, there is the fact that we didn't meet Daisy on the street, we met her while she was teaching children. Furthermore, Daisy is thinking about her future, she would like to start a catering business.

'Compared to before,' she says, 'today I see that I have gained certain skills. I feel like I am getting closer to my goals. It wasn't easy, but I think I have overcome various challenges and learned a lot. At least now I can be proud of myself. Being a young mother of two and having to care for them is not easy.'

The 'Salama' Center

It is no coincidence that Daisy acquired these skills at a center named Salama, a Swahili word meaning 'safety.'

'That is precisely what we aim to provide,' explains Ann Achieng, a social worker in her second year at the Koinonia center. 'When the girls come here, they are safe. First and foremost, they can take courses in cooking, beauty care, hairdressing, and tailoring to gain practical skills. Each class usually has ten participants, though the tailoring course has fewer because we have six machines. Once the training is complete, these women are not simply left to fend for themselves. Instead, thanks to donors, they receive the equipment needed to start small businesses. The center also provides follow-up support. Some find temporary employment as cleaners, cooks, or childcare providers, serving as a stepping stone toward financial independence.'

Leaving children at the center and the history of Kibera

'The most important thing is that they can leave their children here and see them whenever they wish. At the same time, we provide care through our child caregivers. Everyone at Salama has access to clean water and clean bathing facilities, free of charge. Many of them wouldn't even want to leave, because we provide everything they need,' she emphasized.

Anne does not speak about Kibera as if she were observing it from the outside. She was born in this Nairobi slum and grew up in another Koinonia center, 'Anita's House,' where she developed the skills necessary to provide professional and psychological support.

Perhaps it is precisely for this reason that, when recounting the struggles of the women who come to this center, she feels compelled to defend her neighborhood against what she views as an overly simplistic portrayal.

'Many people see Kibera as a place where poor people come from. It is true, there are many problems and there is crime. But you cannot say that just because someone was born and raised here, they must be a criminal. There are many successful people who come from Kibera.'

'It is an image people have built in their minds: Kibera as a place of crime.' She then adds a statement reflecting her connection to the community: 'To me, Kibera makes people resilient. You can grow up here, find someone to help you with your studies, and then succeed. Saying you are from Kibera does not define who you are. Many people from here have bright futures.'

Mwita, Training Coordinator at the Salama center

Samuel Mwita, the training program coordinator at Salama and the only man working full-time at the center shares this perspective.

'Being the only man in this program is significant for that very reason to help and empower women, men and women need to work together, it is crucial to understand that women's liberation cannot be about women alone.' This is because, he notes, 'many girls become mothers at a young age against their will and especially in Kibera end up being ostracized by the community in various ways.”

For instance, they become mothers very young, and if they were still in school, their education is cut short. Some are forced into early marriage. Others are kicked out of their homes by their parents.

Still others are forced to live on their own. Consequently, they begin to feel a sense of isolation.' 'They are considered failures,' concludes Samuel.

Lara Aiello: ‘The goal is to shift the perspective’

The primary objective, then, is precisely to shift this perspective as Lara Aiello, a psychologist working at the Salama Center, tells us.

'We want to restore dignity to these girls. And we want to do so without viewing Kibera as a place of hopelessness. Here, there is no complaining, no slouching, and no shuffling one's feet while walking. The courses are a pretext for meeting these girls and accompanying them on their journey toward womanhood, independence, and self-actualization. Restoring their dignity, here and elsewhere.'

Young women and the struggle for self-reliance

This story concerns Daisy, as well as Eva and Damaris, two other young women we meet at Salama. Eva is a mother of two and lives on her own.

She was born in Meru County, but Kibera has been her home since she was in the fourth grade. She managed to finish secondary school despite financial hardships, but accumulated school fees prevented her from receiving her final certificate and, consequently, from pursuing further studies at college. Then she became pregnant.

Amidst these challenges, life became a struggle where even buying food, clothes, or diapers for her children was difficult. Poverty became a stigma she had to bear. 'In the neighborhood, people mocked me because I couldn't afford diapers for my children: 'What do you think you're doing if you can't even take care of your kids?'' she explained.

At Salama, Eva took a three-month beauty course. Afterward, the center gave her a cleaning job. 'It’s not my ultimate goal yet, but it’s a salary. It’s money. And it’s mine. It is an opportunity to care for my child without having to wait for someone else to do it for me. My surroundings began to change. Now, I can share my story with others. And since I started earning money, even people who used to look down on me have begun to respect me.”

Damaris's story

Damaris is 25 years old and had been thinking about starting a family. She finished Form 4 in 2018, then met a man who promised to marry her. She became pregnant. That promise lasted only until the day of delivery.

When Damaris went to the hospital to give birth to their daughter, the young man left. He never returned. To this day, she does not know where he is. Her daughter is only ten months old. Yet, her story is not unique.

'In Kibera,' she explains, 'houses can be so crowded that they accommodate up to ten people. A girl grows up, starts feeling like a burden to her family, and enters into a relationship or even an early marriage as a possible way out of hardship. Life isn't easy. But it is easy to be exploited. You could end up involved in crime or in a marriage that eventually fails.'

Damaris is now studying at Salama. And she has a very clear vision: “I would like to open a small center of my own, a place where girls and boys, men and women, can come. I want to put into practice what I’ve learned here. I have to raise my daughter. I don’t have a job, I have nothing. That is why I am trying my absolute best in class.”

The more we ask her about her future, the clearer her vision becomes, and the more her horizons expand. As she speaks with us, Damaris dreams. She dreams of her own business a place capable of attracting customers from Kibera and perhaps all of Nairobi.

But above all, she dreams that one day, when someone mentions her name, they won’t think of the girl abandoned at the hospital with a newborn in her arms, living in Africa’s largest slum. Instead, they will simply think, “Damaris is the best.”

That is the hope with which we bid her farewell: that Damaris is the best, and that all the women of Kibera are the best.

Guglielmo Gallone – Nairobi, Kenya
Source: vaticannews.va/en