They therefore started to deal with the number one need in their community. They planted vegetables in a small garden. Being there last year and this year, the vegetable garden is bigger this year and there is a variety of crops than last year. They are not stagnant but they are growing. The vegetables are then sold to members of the slum at a very cheap price as the cost of production is cheap. They do not intend to widen there market until they are sure that they have surplus production.
Almost all the 200 hundred families have four or five children. That translates to about 800 people depending on two toilets that they have to pay two Kenyan shillings to use. "Now for someone who earns an average of 100 Kenyan shillings a day with five hungry children spending 2 shillings on each child a day for toilet use becomes a luxury," Kamande told me. They saw the need of providing free sanitation, to avoid people finding alternative means of relieving themselves, thus risking disease break out.
Dreams youth built two toilets and one bathroom for Kosovo. The bathroom is the only source of clean water in the area so the way it works is that if someone is using the bathroom and you want to cook tea you have to wait till he finishes. Its kind tricky and Kamande tells me that there next plan of action is to introduce a T-junction so that they have an extra tap outside the bathroom. This has to be considered during there next budget write up. If it falls on the first priority that is.
Security being the third most high in the hierarchy of needs, Dreams youth members take turns to serve as security men during the night and day. Since it costs them nothing except there precious time, they charge the community nothing as they too are part of the beneficiaries.
You'll never notice the dreams youth workshop unless you are told that it is one. This is because, the workshop is a very big open space with only eight goal posts as a landmark and the very few tools they have are kept inside one of members. That is the workshop they occasionally use, when need arises to make furniture.
Once in a while when extra funds allow they gather they community for AIDS awareness. It after they have met there needs that the community can afford to listen to them. During this particular day they must have morale boosters for the slum dwellers to listen to them instead of going to look for daily jobs. Morale boosters may be in form of free vegetables or snacks. One big limitation is that the dreams youth are not in a position of getting the newest information on the disease. They fear that the tendency of repeating information over and over might bore there listeners and therefore they may end up making no impact on there target audience.
How they spend the money they collect from the produce is another source of inspiration for me. They reward themselves first, according to Peter a member of the group because, "If we do not appreciate ourselves then who will? If we do not love ourselves how can we love others, We could not have built the toilets had we not recognized our need to have one. We create first for ourselves then for the society" The remaining cash is banked for emergency needs and for the expansion of their projects.
I shall repeat the fact that what attracted me to the group is the spirit they work on, "Sisi kwa sisi,” If every other youth group worked on these lines, depending on being solely dependant on themselves, then indeed sustainable development will have been achieved.
There are several reasons why the group has never sought assistance. One being, they do not have the skills on how to write the proposals that accompany finance requests. The main reason though is the lesson they learnt from another youth group in the neighborhood. With money there are impositions, you have people who have never experienced slum life come to tell you what to do and not to do. This dreams that they've had for a long time. Therefore since it might lead to the disintegration of Dreams youth, they'd rather do without it. They welcomed me to donate roofing sheets and poles for the renovation of toilets, as long as I did not instruct them on how to do it and they shall gladly account for the material used.
There are several obstacles in there life but again, there have the solutions themselves for themselves. As Kamande concludes, "we will dream, as there is nothing in this world as satisfying as turning your dreams to reality.” What a wonderful philosophy for a team of youth who dream and the rest of the youth.
"Who funds you,” Is a question commonly asked by people whenever they encounter a successful project. I’m one of those people who continually asks this question. I have visited children’s' homes and been involved in many events that involve some of the many non-governmental organisations in Kenya Today.
Normally when I ask the question "Who funds you?" There is always an answer of so many international and less local funders. There is always the main sponsor and associate sponsors. You can therefore understand why I was in shock when I got a different answer to that question: "Sisi kwa sisi.” Now if you are a Kenyan reading this you might have concluded by now that I'm talking about the environmental organization, no I'm not talking about "Sisi kwa sisi" the organization I'm talking about "Sisi kwa sisi" the method of survival used by the Dreams youth team. To non Kenyans "sisi kwa sisi," in Swahili literally means by us for us. When I asked the Dreams youth team who funds you, they gladly told me that the project is run by themselves for themselves. They raise the funds themselves and use it.
Dreams youth is an organization of thirty three young adults, based in Mathare slum, Nairobi. The actual location of the project in the vast slum is called Kosovo. It is called Kosovo because of the circumstances surrounding its formation. There was a war between land grabbers and the slum dwellers before it was legally decided that Kosovo was government land and therefore for the majority squatters. Therefore they settled and extend the Mathare slum.
After former street children, I should say among the first street children in Kenya, completed there skills courses at different church institutions, they had to face the reality that the church could only host them for a certain period of time, and had to move out for the next bunch of street children. They had to establish themselves as adults even before they became adults. Thus the birth of Dreams youth. Ten years ago they moved to the cheapest place (the slum) in the city that they had grown in.
The slum might be the cheapest place to live in, but it also costs to live there. These former street children faced the challenge of either going back to the streets at night as gangsters or earning a living the hard way. As the secretary Robert Kamande told me, "Everyone was sure that the easiest way to start out big was to steal. But we discussed the repercussions of this and saw that the faster you earn, the faster you loose. "Thus the decision was made to stay off the streets:" a life everyone of us never wanted to re-live again," Ekutwa confirmed.
From the church, armed with skills but no capital the Dreams youth started a new life. They had to make money fast. Members worked day and night for daily jobs that earned them about 200 Kenyan shillings a day at most and 10 Kenyan shillings at least. That translates to two dollars at most and few cents at least. And then their earnings were banked. Dreams youth office is a tree shade with a poster that reads "Dreams youth." "An office is not a priority," said Kamande when I asked him why they did not have one.
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