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In Kenya, the rural poor from different tribes are brought together in urban slums where ethnic tensions flared in 2007 following disputed election results. One of the worst affected areas was the Mathare slum in Nairobi. While international media focused on machete attacks in Mathare, a local non-profit called Slum TV told the stories of residents who helped each other survive. The World’s Matthew Brunwasser has the story.(Photo: Matthew Brunwasser) Download MP3
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MARCO WERMAN: Many of us first heard of the ethnic tensions that rippled through Kenya’s urban slums back in 2007. That’s when those tensions flared into violence, following a disputed presidential election. One of the worst affected areas was Mathare, a slum in Nairobi. The international media focused on machete attacks in the slum. But a local non-profit called Slum TV told the stories of residents who helped each other survive the chaos. Today, Slum TV continues its mission. To teach television production as a development tool. From Mathare, Matthew Brunwasser reports.
MATTHEW BRUNWASSER: The streets are filled with mud and sewage after recent rains. Dirty teenagers hang around openly sniffing glue from plastic bags. It looks like a sad place of poverty and decay. But there are positive stories here too. Slum TV is the place to hear them. The volunteer organization uses television to promote positive examples of Mathare residents helping themselves. In this news clip, a woman interviews two young brothers, Moise and Rasta, who opened what the reporter calls an elegant barber shop in Mathare.
FEMALE SPEAKER: In life, it’s about trial and error, and they had to take a chance of risking in creating such a business, especially in this locality.
BRUNWASSER: The stories are reported and produced by young residents who learn video production at Slum TV. Vincent Omuga is a cameraman. Showing me the streets where he was born and raised, he says there are loads of stories that no one outside the slum ever hears about.
VINCENT OMUGA: In the slum, good things happen there. We have people with big businesses, big minds, great ideas that we can see.
BRUNWASSER: There’s the story of a woman who fries potatoes for a living. A man who fixes shoes. A water vendor. Ethnic diversity is shown as something positive, not a threat. Slum TV manager Kenneth Wendo says it was coincidence that the project started shortly before the violence in 2007. But that just made it even more important to highlight the positive.
KENNETH WENDO: There was a group of Kikuyus who were supporting Luo people. They actually believed in positivity. So in some of our clips, we focus on a group of Luo people who helped Kikuyus to resettle after they were chased away from their home. So we realized there is love in that slum as much as there is also hatred.
MARGOLIS: Wendo says it would be difficult for outsiders to tell these stories. Slum TV members use an air compressor to blow up an inflatable 20-foot screen and hammer in spikes to support it. There’s no formal electricity in Mathare. What little that exists is stolen from the grid and few have television sets, so Slum TV brings its programs to the people. And it’s clearly a major event. A Slum TV member warms up the crowd, many of whom are children. Esther Wanjiru, a Slum TV reporter, says that if locals can just see positive examples, they can learn to improve themselves.
ESTHER WANJIRU: People in the slums they have no hope. If you just show them, instead of waiting for someone to come and give you something, just do it yourself, like the DIY culture. But if you’re just saying oh oh nothing is going to ever happen. Just show them what other people are doing, and instead of these people just staying back and being prostitutes, being thieves, they’ll have something to do.
MARGOLIS: When Kenyans hear about Mathare, its only stories of crime, poverty and filth, says resident Basi Embura. Watching from her doorstep, she says Slum TV is helping to raise the slum’s self-esteem.
BASI EMBURA: Slum TV is teaching us on how to be happy with what we have, we should accept ourselves and try to be better. Yeah, we love it.
MARGOLIS: Reporter Wanjiru says she’s curious about why people like telling their stories, so she asks them.
WANJIRU: Every time when I walk around the slums, people just know me. They see me and they see Slum TV. And most of them are like, “I have a story to tell you,” and you want to listen to them. And what they say is, “I think my story can help someone else in the other side of the slum.”
MARGOLIS: Slum TV has no plans as of yet to broadcast over the airwaves, but they have started posting their stories on the internet. The crew from Slum TV says people in Mathare have started taking themselves more seriously, just from seeing themselves and their everyday stories on TV. For the World, I’m Matthew Brunwasser, Mathare slum, Nairobi.
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