Kibera (

Kinubi The Nubi language (also called Ki-Nubi, ar, كي-نوبي, kī-nūbī) is a Sudanese Arabic-based creole language spoken in Uganda around Bombo, and in Kenya around Kibera, by the Ugandan Nubians, many of whom are descendants of Emin Pasha' ...

: ''Forest'' or ''Jungle'') is a division of

Nairobi Area Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

, and neighbourhood of the city of

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ha ...

, from the city centre. Kibera is the largest

slum A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...

in Nairobi, and the largest urban slum in Africa.http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1703 Machetes, Ethnic Conflict and Reductionism The 2009 Kenya Population and Housing Census reports Kibera's population as 170,070, contrary to previous estimates of one or two million people. Other sources suggest the total Kibera population may be 500,000 to well over 1,000,000 depending on which slums are included in defining Kibera. Most Kibera slum residents live in extreme poverty, earning less than US$2 per day. Unemployment rates are high. 12% of the population are living with HIV. Cases of assault and rape are common. There are few schools, and most people cannot afford education for their children. Clean water is scarce. Diseases caused by poor hygiene are prevalent. A great majority living in the slum lack access to basic services, including electricity, running water, and medical care. The Government initiated a clearance programme to replace the slum with a residential district of high-rise apartments, and to relocate the residents to these new buildings upon completion. The neighbourhood is divided into a number of villages, including

Kianda In Angolan mythology, Kianda (or Dandalunda) is a goddess of the sea The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to ...

Soweto East Soweto East is a part of Kibera slum in Nairobi. Its population has been estimated at 70,000 persons. Slum residents have to pay more than others for water. Other parts of Kibera include Laini Saba, Lindi, Makina, Kianda, Mashimoni, Gatuikira, Kis ...

Gatwekera Gatwekera (Gatuikira) is a part of Kibera slum in Nairobi. Its population likely exceeds 70,000. Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor is active there. Many of its residents are Luo. Médecins Sans Frontières used to run a health center there. O ...

Kisumu Ndogo Kisumu Ndogo is a name given to "villages" (or settlements) that are part of two informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, Kibera and Korogocho. Kisumu Ndogo means ''little Kisumu''. The original settlers of Kisumu Ndogo in Kibera were from the Ki ...

Lindi Lindi is a historic southern Tanzanian coastal small city and regional capital of the Lindi Region located at the far end of Lindi Bay, on the Indian Ocean in southeastern Tanzania. The town is south of Dar es Salaam and north of Mtwara, ...

Laini Saba Laini Saba is a suburb of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. It belongs to the major slum of Kibera. As for Lindi, another village within Kibera, its population is estimated at 100,000. Soweto East is another village belonging to Kibera. The price of ...

Siranga Siranga is a part of Kibera slum in Nairobi. Its population is estimated at 150,000 residents. The Nairobi Christian Outreach Centre is in Siranga. Other parts of Kibera include Laini Saba, Lindi, Makina, Kianda, Gatwekera, Soweto East, Kisumu ...

, Makina, Salama, Ayany, and

Mashimoni Mashimoni is a part of Kibera slum in Nairobi. Mashimoni Primary School, Facing the Future School, Mashimoni Good Samaritan School for the Orphans (MAGOSO) and Mashimoni Squatters Schools exist. Many of its residents are Luhyas and Kambas. It i ...

History

Colonial era

The city of Nairobi, where Kibera is located, was founded in 1899 when the

Uganda Railway The Uganda Railway was a metre-gauge railway system and former British state-owned railway company. The line linked the interiors of Uganda and Kenya with the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa in Kenya. After a series of mergers and splits, the lin ...

line was built, thereby creating a need for its headquarters and British colonial offices. The colonial administration intended to keep Nairobi as a home for Europeans and temporary migrant workers from Africa and Asia. The migrant workers were brought into Nairobi on short-term contracts, as

indenture An indenture is a legal contract that reflects or covers a debt or purchase obligation. It specifically refers to two types of practices: in historical usage, an indentured servant status, and in modern usage, it is an instrument used for commercia ...

d labour, to work in the service sector, as railway manual labour and to fill lower-level administrative posts in the colonial government.Clayton, A. (1975). Government and labour in Kenya: 1895–1963. London: Cass, Between 1900 and 1940, the colonial government passed a number of laws – such as the 1922 Vagrancy Act – to segregate people, evict, arrest, expel and limit the movement of the natives and indentured workers.Macharia, K. (1992). Slum clearance and the informal economy in Nairobi. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 30(2), 221–236) Within Nairobi, Africans could live in segregated "native reserves" at the edge of the city. Permits to live in Nairobi were necessary, and these permits separated living areas of non-Europeans by ethnic group. One such group were African soldiers who served the military interests of the British colonial army, and their assigned area developed into a slum, now known as Kibera. Kibera originated as a settlement in the forests at the outskirts of Nairobi, when

Nubian Nubian may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Nubia, a region along the Nile river in Southern Egypt and northern Sudan. *Nubian people *Nubian languages *Anglo-Nubian goat, a breed of goat * Nubian ibex * , several ships of the Britis ...

soldiers returning from service with the

King's African Rifles The King's African Rifles (KAR) was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from Britain's various possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the 1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions within ...

(KAR) were allocated plots of land there in return for their efforts in 1904. Kibera was situated on the KAR military exercise grounds in close proximity to the KAR headquarters along Thika Road. The

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

colonial government allowed the settlement to grow informally. The Nubians had no claim on land in "Native Reserves" and over time, other tribes moved into the area to rent land from the Nubian landlords. With the increase in railway traffic, Nairobi's economy developed, and an increasing number of rural migrants moved to urban Nairobi in search of wage labour. Kibera and other slums developed throughout Nairobi. Kibera Nairobi Kenya Slum July 2009

Proposals were made in the late 1920s to demolish and relocate Kibera, as it was within the zone of European residential holdings; however, the residents objected to these proposals. The colonial government considered proposals to reorganise Kibera, and the Kenya Land Commission heard a number of cases which referred to the "Kibera problem". By then, Kibera was not the only slum. A 1931 Colonial Report noted the segregated nature of housing in Nairobi and other Kenyan towns, with housing for Europeans reported as good, and widespread prevalence of slum property for Africans and other non-European migrants.

Post-independence

After Kenya became independent in 1963, a number of forms of housing were made illegal by the government. The new ruling affected Kibera on the basis of land tenure, rendering it an unauthorised settlement. Despite this, people continued to live there, and by the early 1970s

landlord A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant (also a ''lessee'' or ''renter''). When a juristic person is in this position, the ...

s were renting out their properties in Kibera to significantly greater numbers of tenants than were permitted by law. The tenants, who are highly

impoverished Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

income

, cannot afford to rent legal housing, finding the rates offered in Kibera to be comparatively affordable. The number of residents in Kibera has increased accordingly despite its unauthorised nature. By 1974, members of the

Kikuyu Kikuyu or Gikuyu (Gĩkũyũ) mostly refers to an ethnic group in Kenya or its associated language. It may also refer to: * Kikuyu people, a majority ethnic group in Kenya *Kikuyu language, the language of Kikuyu people *Kikuyu, Kenya, a town in Cent ...

tribe predominated the population of Kibera, and had gained control over administrative positions, which were kept through political patronage. A shift in Kenyan demographics has taken place since then, with the

Luo Luo may refer to: Luo peoples and languages *Luo peoples, an ethno-linguistic group of eastern and central Africa **Luo people of Kenya and Tanzania or Joluo, an ethnic group in western Kenya, eastern Uganda, and northern Tanzania. *** Luoland, th ...

and

Luhya Luhya or Abaluyia may refer to: * Luhya people * Luhya language Luhya (; also Luyia, Luhia or Luhiya) is a Bantu language of western Kenya. Dialects The various Luhya tribes speak several related languages and dialects, though some of them are ...

tribes from the West of Kenya being the primary sources of internal emigration. By 1995 Kibera had become a predominantly Luo slum and Mathare Valley nearby the predominantly Kikuyu slum area. The coincident rise of multi party politics in Kenya has caused the Luo leader and MP for much of Kibera, the parliamentary seat of Langata, Raila Odinga to be known for his ability to bring out a formidable demonstration force instantly. Meanwhile, Mathare Valley has become a hotbed of gang warfare. Political tensions in the nation between the ethnic tribes escalated after the re-election of President Kibaki in 2007. Nairobi slums area

The Nubian community has a Council of Elders who are also the Trustees of its Trust. This Trust now claims all of Kibera. It claims that the extent of their land is over . It claims that owing to State sanctioned allotments the land area is now reduced to . The Government does not accept their claims but its rehousing program envisions a land extent around for the claimed Nubian settlement. Neither side has left any room for negotiation from this position. Presently, Kibera's residents represent all the major Kenyan ethnic backgrounds, with some areas being specifically dominated by peoples of one ethno-linguistic group. Many new residents come from rural areas with chronic underdevelopment and overpopulation issues. The multi-ethnic nature of Kibera's population, combined with the

tribalism Tribalism is the state of being organized by, or advocating for, tribes or tribal lifestyles. Human evolution has primarily occurred in small hunter-gatherer groups, as opposed to in larger and more recently settled agricultural societies or civ ...

that pervades Kenyan politics, has led to Kibera hosting a number of small ethnic conflicts throughout its century-long history. The Kenyan government owns all the land upon which Kibera stands, though it continues to not officially acknowledge the settlement; no basic services, schools, clinics, running water or lavatories are publicly provided, and the services that do exist are privately owned.

Geography

Kibera is in southwest

, from the city centre. Much of its southern border is bounded by the

Nairobi river The Nairobi River is a river that flows across Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. It is the main river of the Nairobi River Basin, with several parallel streams flowing eastward. All of the Nairobi basin rivers join east of Nairobi and meet the A ...

and the Nairobi Dam, an artificial lake that used to provide drinking water to the residents of the city, but now there are two main pipes going into Kibera. Kibera is divided into thirteen villages and two estates, including

, Makina, Salama, Ayany and

Built environment

Kibera's morphology is very dynamic. Between 2006 and 2014 a spatiotemporal change of single buildings and building blocks across the areas of

, Laina Saba and

was measured (77% rise in number of buildings, density increase by 10%). Yet, its organic structure and pattern (building blocks, pathways), generally remained unchanged.

Demographics

The 2009 Kenya Population and Housing Census reported Kibera's population as 170,070. The Kibera slum was previously thought to be one of the biggest informal urban settlements in the world. Several actors had provided and published over the years growing estimations of the size of its population, most of them stating that it was the largest slum in Africa with the number of people there reaching over 1 million. According to Mike Davis, a well known expert on urban slums, Kibera had a population of about 800,000 people. The International Housing Coalition (IHC) made an estimate of more than half a million people. UN-Habitat had released several estimations ranging between 350,000 and 1 million people. These statistics mainly come out of analysis of aerial pictures of the area. IRIN estimated a population density of 2000 residents per hectare. In 2008 an independent team of researchers began a door-by-door survey named "Map Kibera Project" with the aim to map physical and socio-demographic features of the slum. A trained team of locals, after having developed an ad-hoc surveying methodology, has so far gathered census data of over 15,000 people and completed the mapping of 5000 structures, services (public toilets, schools), and infrastructures (drainage system, water and electricity supply) in the village of

. On the basis of data collected in Kianda, the Map Kibera Project team estimated that the whole Kibera slum could be inhabited by a total population ranging from 235,000 to a maximum of 270,000 people, dramatically scaling down all previous figures. The breakdown of ethnic groups inhabiting Kibera and their gender-specific representation is

: 34.9% (male), 35.4% (female); Luyia: 26.5% (male), 32.5% (female);

: 11.6% (male), 9.1% (female);

: 7.9% (male), 6.4% (female);

Kamba Kamba may refer to: *Kamba people The Kamba or Akamba (sometimes called Wakamba) people are a Bantu ethnic group who predominantly live in the area of Kenya stretching from Nairobi to Tsavo and north to Embu, in the southern part of the f ...

: 7.5% (male), 10.3% (female);

Kisii Kisii may refer to: * Kisii, Kenya, the inaugural capital city of Kenya * Kisii County, one of the 47 counties of Kenya * Gucha District, in Kenya, also known as ''South Kisii District'' * Nyamira District, in Kenya, also known as ''North Kisii Di ...

: 6.4% (male), 2.2% (female); Other: 5.2% (male), 4.1% (female) Kibera Slum Railway Tracks Nairobi Kenya July 2012

Infrastructure

The Uganda Railway Line passes through the centre of the neighbourhood, providing passengers aboard the train a firsthand view of the slum. Kibera has a railway station, but most residents use buses and ''

matatu In Kenya matatu or matatus (known as mathree in Sheng) are privately owned minibuses used as share taxis. Often decorated, many ''matatu'' feature portraits of famous people or slogans and sayings. Likewise, the music they play is also aimed ...

s'' to reach the city centre;

carjacking Carjacking is a robbery in which the item taken over is a motor vehicle.Michael Cherbonneau, "Carjacking," in ''Encyclopedia of Social Problems'', Vol. 1 (SAGE, 2008: ed. Vincent N. Parrillo), pp. 110-11. In contrast to car theft, carjacking is ...

, irresponsible driving, and poor traffic law enforcement are chronic issues. Kibera is heavily polluted by human refuse, garbage, soot, dust, and other wastes. The slum is contaminated with human and animal faeces, due to the open

sewage Sewage (or domestic sewage, domestic wastewater, municipal wastewater) is a type of wastewater that is produced by a community of people. It is typically transported through a sewer system. Sewage consists of wastewater discharged from residenc ...

system and the frequent use of " flying toilets". The lack of sanitation combined with poor nutrition among residents accounts for many illnesses and diseases. The Umande Trust, a local NGO, is building communal toilets that generate

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Eart ...

gas (

biogas Biogas is a mixture of gases, primarily consisting of methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, produced from raw materials such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant material, sewage, green waste and food waste. It is a ...

) for local residents. A community radio station, Pamoja FM, advocates not only upgrading Kibera slum but also all the slums in Nairobi. ''Kibera Journal'' has existed since November 2006. The paper covers issues affecting the people of Kibera, and it has played an important role in training the youth in basic journalism skills that they use to cover issues in their communities.

Education

Most education centres in Kibera are classified as informal, but various initiatives have been underway to add schools. Some start as babycare centres, which later develop into schools. Most are not regulated by the government. Some of the notable schools are Olympic Primary School, one of the leading government schools in the country. Other government (public) schools in Kibera include Kibera Primary School (also called Old Kibera), Ayany Primary School and Toi Primary School.

Facing the Future School Facing the Future school is a school located in Mashimoni, Kibera. The school was established as a partnership with grassroots leader Simeon Ajigo in 2011 and Cross-Cultural Thresholds, a non-profit group founded by Carter Via and located in ...

(FaFu), as well as several church-owned and privately owned schools are also in the area. Notable Secondary schools include PCEA Silanga High School, owned by the

Presbyterian Church of East Africa Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) is a Presbyterian denomination headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. In Kenya, 10% of the population is Presbyterian. It was started by missionaries from Scotland, most notable of whom was Dr John Arthur. I ...

, Raila Educational centre, and Olympic Secondary School, among others. There is the vocational PCEA Emmanuel Technical Training Centre, offering self-employment skills to the residents and the Tunapanda Institute, offering free courses on technology, design and business skills. Several other local youth organisations, like the football (soccer) team the Kibera Black stars, are also concerned and involved in educational projects.

Slum upgrading

Kibera is one of the most studied slums in Africa, not only because it sits in the centre of the modern city, but also because

UN-HABITAT The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) is the United Nations programme for human settlements and sustainable urban development. It was established in 1977 as an outcome of the first United Nations Conference on Human Settleme ...

, the United Nations' agency for human settlements, is headquartered close by.

Ban Ki-moon Ban Ki-moon (; ; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was his country's Minister ...

visited the settlement within a month of his selection as UN secretary-general. Kibera, as one of the most pronounced slums within Kenya, is undergoing an intensive

slum upgrading Slum upgrading is an integrated approach that aims to turn around downward trends in an area. These downward trends can be legal (land tenure), physical (infrastructure), social (crime or education, for example) or economic." The main objective of ...

process. The government, UN-HABITAT and a contingent of NGOs, notably Maji na Ufanisi, are making inroads into the settlements in an attempt to facelift the housing and sanitary conditions. There are three significant complicating factors to construction or upgrade within Kibera. The first is the rate of petty and serious crime. Building materials cannot be left unattended for long at any time because there is a very high chance of them being stolen. It is not uncommon for owners of storm-damaged dwellings to have to camp on top of the remnants of their homes until repairs can be made, to protect the raw materials from would-be thieves. The second is the lack of building foundations. The ground in much of Kibera is literally composed of refuse and rubbish. Dwellings are often constructed atop this unstable ground, and therefore many structures collapse whenever the slum experiences flooding, which it does regularly. This means that even well-constructed buildings are often damaged by the collapse of nearby poorly constructed ones. The third complicating factor is the unyielding

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

and cramped sprawl of the area. Few houses have vehicle access, and many are at the bottoms of steep inclines (which heightens the flooding risk). This means that any construction efforts are made more difficult and costly by the fact that all materials must be brought in by hand.

Clearance

On 16 September 2009 the Kenyan government, which claims ownership of the land on which Kibera stands, began a long-term movement scheme which will rehouse the people who live in slums in Nairobi. The clearance of Kibera was expected to take between two and five years to complete. The entire project was planned to take nine years and to rehouse all the slum residents in the city. The project had the backing of the United Nations and former Prime Minister

Raila Odinga Raila Amolo Odinga (born 7 January 1945) is a Kenyan politician, former Member of Parliament (MP) for Langata and businessman who served as the Prime Minister of Kenya from 2008 to 2013. He is assumed to be the Leader of Opposition in Kenya sin ...

, who was the area MP, and was expected to cost $1.2 billion. The new communities were planned to include schools, markets, playgrounds and other facilities. The first batch of around 1,500 people to leave the slum were taken away by truck on 16 September 2009 from 6:30 am local time and were rehoused in 300 newly constructed apartments with a monthly rent of around $10. The project start was postponed several times when Prime Minister Odinga was unavailable to oversee the first day. He was joined on the first day by Housing Minister

Soita Shitanda Soita Shitanda (9 November 1959 – 24 May 2016) was a Kenyan politician. He belonged to New Ford Kenya and was elected to represent the Malava Constituency in the National Assembly of Kenya. Soita represented Malava constituency since 1997, after ...

and his assistant Margaret Wanjiru, with all three helping residents to load their belongings onto the trucks. Also present were several dozen armed police officers to oversee the arrangements and to deter any resistance. The process has been legally challenged by more than 80 people, and the Kenyan High Court has stated that the government cannot begin demolition works until the case is heard in October but will be able to demolish the homes of people who leave voluntarily before then. The 80

plaintiff A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of the p ...

s are a mixture of middle-class landlords and Kibera residents, and they claim that the land in Kibera is theirs and hence the government has no right to demolish the shacks. The Nubian community, who have lived on the land for nearly 100 years, are also disappointed with the scheme, and one elder has said that the present housing should be improved instead. The project has also come under fire from urban planners who say that it risks repeating the mistakes of previous schemes, when poor families either shared two-room apartments with one or two other families to pay the rent, or sublet them to middle-class families and moved back into the slums. Workers earning a

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...

in Kenya make less than

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

2 per day. There is also controversy over the timing of the project, with the first phase, rehousing 7,500 people, being delayed by five years and one government official stating that if the project continues at the current pace it will take 1,178 years to complete.

References in popular culture

Kibera is featured in Fernando Meirelles's film ''

The Constant Gardener ''The Constant Gardener'' is a 2001 novel by British author John le Carré. The novel tells the story of Justin Quayle, a British diplomat whose activist wife is murdered. Believing there is something behind the murder, he seeks to uncover the t ...

'', which is based on the book of the same name by

John le Carré David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. ...

. It is mentioned in the music video " World on Fire" by

Sarah McLachlan Sarah Ann McLachlan Order of Canada, OC Order of British Columbia, OBC (born January 28, 1968) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is ''Surfacing ( ...

, which profiled the work of Carolina for Kibera, a grassroots organisation named a Hero of Global Health in 2005 by ''Time'' magazine.

Robert Neuwirth Robert Neuwirth is an American journalist, author, and investigative reporter. He wrote '' Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World'', a book describing his experiences living in squatter communities in Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro, Ist ...

devotes a chapter of his book ''Shadow Cities'' to Kibera and calls it a squatter community, predicting that places like Kibera, Sultanbeyli in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

, Turkey, and

Dharavi Dharavi is a locality in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, considered to be one of the world's largest slums. Dharavi has an area of just over and a population of about 1,000,000. With a population density of over , Dharavi is one of the most dens ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

, India, are the prototypes of the cities of tomorrow. Among other things, Neuwirth points out that such cities should be reconsidered and not viewed merely as slums, because many locals were drawn to them while escaping far worse conditions in rural areas. Michael Holman's 2005 novel ''Last Orders at Harrods'' is based on a fictional version of the slum, called ''Kireba''.

Bill Bryson William McGuire Bryson (; born 8 December 1951) is an American–British journalist and author. Bryson has written a number of nonfiction books on topics including travel, the English language, and science. Born in the United States, he has b ...

visited Africa for CARE and wrote a companion book called "Bill Bryson's African Diary", which includes a description of his visit to Kibera. Kibera is the backdrop for the award-winning short film '' Kibera Kid'', which featured a cast entirely drawn from residents. It has played in film festivals worldwide including the

Berlin Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

and won a Student Emmy from Hollywood. Recently, Hot Sun Foundation and Hot Sun Films started the first film school in the slum, the Kibera Film School. The school teaches the youth from the slum how to make films and tell their stories. In 2009 through 2010, the Kibera Film School and Hot Sun Foundation collaborated on the feature follow-up to Kibera Kid, which is titled '' Togetherness Supreme''. In his documentary ''Living with Corruption'',

Sorious Samura Sorious Samura (born 27 October 1963) is a Sierra Leonean journalist. He is best known for two CNN documentary films: '' Cry Freetown'' (2000) and ''Exodus from Africa'' (2001). The self-funded ''Cry Freetown'' depicts the most brutal period of th ...

stayed with a family in Kibera to film the corruption that occurs even at the lowest levels of Kenyan society. Furthermore, Kibera is portrayed in the Austrian 2007 documentary Über Wasser: Menschen und gelbe Kanister. In 2011, the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

aired a reality show documentary TV program called ''

Rich, Famous and in the Slums ''Rich, Famous and in the Slums'' is a TV programme broadcast by the BBC on 3 and 10 March 2011 for Comic Relief. Plot Four famous personalities, Lenny Henry, Reggie Yates, Samantha Womack and Angela Rippon, were sent by the BBC to live for sever ...

'' about Kibera. The program showed four famous and rich people, after working at the worst jobs available in the slums, moving in with four local impoverished families and getting to meet the actual conditions in which they live. They were: * A single mother away from her two children, supporting them and her parents through prostitution. * A family of young orphans living in horrible conditions. * A single mother of 6, with HIV, who owned a small beauty salon and volunteers as a community health care person. * A 20 year old newcomer to Kibera, one of many pouring in from other parts of Kenya hoping to find a job in Nairobi. ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...

'' published an article in 2012 suggesting that Kibera "may be the most entrepreneurial place on the planet" and that "to equate slums with idleness and misery is to misunderstand them". The 2014 novel '' Bingo's Run'' by James A. Levine features a 15-year-old from Kibera. The Netflix 2015 series ''

Sense8 ''Sense8'' (a play on the word '' sensate'' ) is an American science fiction drama streaming television series created by Lana and Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski for Netflix. The production companies behind ''Sense8'' included ...

'' features a character named Capheus based in Kibera, showing the hardships of a fictional matatu driver there.

References

External links

Clean Water for Kenyans: Multimedia story on Water Sanitation Projects in Kibera

BBC News: Nairobi Slum Life

: Clean Water for Kenya
{{Coord, 1, 19, S, 36, 47, E, region:KE_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki, display=title Populated places in Kenya Shanty towns in Kenya Slums in Kenya Suburbs of Nairobi Squatting in Kenya