Scottish generosity transforming a Kenyan community

Instead, members of 26-year-old Everlyn's family huddle in dark shadow. Behind a lank cotton curtain an elderly man, little more than skin and bone, lies prostrate on a wooden board that serves as a bed. He is Everlyn's father, Joseph, and he is dying from cancer. His family can't afford the 3,500 Kenyan shilling (30) cost of a chemotherapy session – the equivalent of eight months' rent.

There are just four of the wooden beds to go round, so at night Joseph, 72, must share despite his ill-health. Some of the family are forced to sleep on the mud floor, but when it rains human waste washes in from outside.

"There are rats," says Everlyn. "At night we cover ourselves completely and leave just a small area for our nose from which to breathe." Like more than half of Nairobi's three million people, Everlyn lives in one of the city's 200 slum areas, or "informal settlements".

Neglected by the government, slum dwellers are left to fend for themselves. There is no water supply, no electricity and, perhaps worst of all, no prospects for the vast majority of the people who dwell here.

Some 90 per cent of the young people are unemployed. Everlyn, who speaks fluent English, is keen to work but cannot get a job. "I went for a position as a tea girl and took my CV but I couldn't take that job because the man wanted to have sex with me," she says, citing a common problem for slum women seeking work in Kenya. "I wanted to protect my dignity." Unlike many other women in Matopeni, she has not resorted to prostitution.

Children fill the slums, dressed in filthy rags, sometimes ornate cast-off party dresses now caked in dirt. They squat among filth-filled bags of human waste that litter Matopeni, attracting swarms of flies.

These bags are a by-product of one of the biggest problems in the slum – there are no toilets. As a result people resort to the so-called "flying toilet", defecating into a plastic bag before discarding it.

"We have to go to a neighbouring village and pay ten shillings (less than 1 pence] to use their toilet," says Everlyn. "If they take pity on you it's five shillings. Some people can't afford to pay, and at night it is too dangerous to go there, so people are forced to use the flying toilet."

Water poses similar problems. In their desperation for clean water, slum dwellers steal it from the mains, illegally breaking open the pipes serving wealthier neighbourhoods and connecting their own plastic feed pipes.

These haphazard pipes stretch into the slums through open ditches filled with stagnant waste. They regularly split, contaminating the supply.

In Nairobi, three-quarters of hospital beds are filled by people suffering from diarrhoea. "We don't have any alternative," says Everlyn.

"The children are getting sick. We present our worries to the area MP but the politicians only pay an interest once every five years (when they are up for re-election]. The rest of the time they are busy enjoying their money."

Everlyn's parents, married for 36 years, moved to Nairobi from the countryside in search of work.

Slum life is all that Everlyn has ever known, but she is determined her situation will improve.

Unable to find paid work, she volunteers as chairwoman of Arise and Shine, a group set up by members of the Matopeni community to try to lobby government and raise awareness of the need for improvements. Now the slum, home to 2,000 people, is the potential focus of work by Christian Aid and local partner organisations.

Christian Aid is working in Kenya's slum communities to build toilet blocks and water tanks, fed legally by the suppliers through strong metal pipes.

For a tiny charge, residents can buy clean water or use the toilet facilities. Any profits are spent on additional improvements for the slum.

A sanitation block containing eight toilets and eight showers costs about 3.5 million shilling (30,000). So far money for such life-changing measures has not been available for Matopeni, but the technique has been shown to have a dramatic impact in other slums, such as Nairobi's largest, Kibera, which now has several toilet and shower blocks.

Professor Edward Kairu, executive director of Maji Na Ufanisi, a Kenyan non-governmental organisation (NGO) supported by Christian Aid, says it is hard to overestimate how important such facilities are for people who have no other way of maintaining their hygiene or preserving their dignity.

When fires broke out in Kibera during waves of violence following a widely discredited 2007 election, the slum dwellers fought off the flames around the toilet block and left their homes to burn. "The people did everything they could to protect the sanitation block, even letting their own homes go up in flames," says Prof Kairu. "It's the only facility they respect. Even the youths who loot everything else will not damage that."

Prof Kairu says western countries are often misguided in thinking that better housing is the top priority for people living in slum conditions. In reality, housing comes towards the bottom of the list, below sanitation, clean water and schools. Education, residents believe, will provide prospects for their children, and enable them to break out of the cycle of crime gripping many slums.

Humphrey Oduor, 32, knows firsthand about the attraction of crime for young people, and the devastating consequences of an unpoliced society. Just weeks ago his 19-year-old brother-in-law was beaten to death in Kiambiu, the 60,000-person slum where he lives.

He is stoical as he says: "Just the other day I lost one of my relatives. He was beaten to death. We tried to call the police but they were not responding."

Attacks, often fatal, are a fact of life in the slums, he says, and happen at least once a week. Humphrey used to be on the other side of the violence. He is a reformed head of the notorious Mungiki gang, once involved in large-scale drug dealing and car-jacking. He ran a gang of 60 youths who stole, plundered, dealt drugs and ran riot in Nairobi to make a living.

He was 15 when his father died and he found himself moving from a respectable neighbourhood elsewhere in Nairobi to a slum.

"That's when my life started in a very awkward kind of way," he says. "I never imagined being in this kind of situation. I tried to go to school and work at the same time but I couldn't pay my fees. I entered into drugs, alcohol and crime. I did that up to early 2000.

"I was a chairman of a gang. I used to organise very bad crimes – robberies and car-jackings. I even car-jacked police officers. It was very terrible. I saw most of my friends killed by the police."

Humphrey says a church group in Nairobi helped him see the error of his ways. "I thought this was not the kind of life I was supposed to be living. Slowly I started moving out of crime."

Now he is married, with a young family, and a respected member of the Kiambiu community. A few years ago he set up the Kiambiu Youth Group, with the help of contributions from groups including Christian Aid, to try to improve prospects for slum teenagers. However, he says the outlook is still bleak. "It's very frustrating for the youths. It's very difficult day by day.

"If you are not intelligent you are groomed to go into crime. That means you will get into drugs and prostitution and alcoholism."

He believes the problems stem from neglect by the authorities. "There is a lack of human dignity in the settlement. We are not being rendered local services. We need clean, affordable water. We need sanitation."

His youth group attempted to set up a recycling scheme, whereby young people would collect the litter that covers the slum, sort out the plastics, glass bottles and organic waste, and sell them to pay their wages.

However, the land he hoped to use for the recycling centre was taken away by the government. Land grabbers soon moved into the area, and now slum housing has sprung up there, adding to the vicious circle of Nairobi's problems.

Despite the rank desperation that fills Kenya's slum communities, there are glimmers of hope.

Mother-of-three Catherine Nyaata, 38, has seen her life transformed by a community initiative that brought a toilet to her slum.

She had few prospects when, as a seven-year-old, her father took her out of school after her older sister became pregnant so that she could help raise the child.

Eventually she met a husband and, terribly poor, they moved from slum to slum. She was even kicked out of one slum dwelling three days before she delivered her third child because they could not pay the rent.

However, her prospects improved when she became involved in the Kiambiu Usafi Group, set up by volunteers in Kiambiu slum determined to improve conditions.

They managed to attract funds from Christian Aid and other groups to build four toilet blocks.

Now the 60,000 people living in Kiambiu can pay three shillings (0.02 pence) to use the toilet, which goes towards upkeep and wages for local people employed as cleaners.

Catherine now works as vice-chairwoman of the Kiambiu Usafi Group, collecting the proceeds from the toilet blocks. And since the first of the blocks was built in 2003, the initiative has made a profit of about 100,000 (840) shillings a month.

This has enabled the group to buy a 37-acre plot of land close to the slum. Whereas the slum is owned by the government, and those living there have no rights over their homes, this land is owned by the community group.

It is a breakthrough that gives residents ownership and prospects for the first time. They plan to build permanent houses and rear pigs.

Catherine says: "We have had a very rough ride. It was very difficult at the beginning but the projects here have transformed things for me.

"I have a lot of hopes. On the land we have bought I hope to have facilities in my house so I don't have to walk to the toilet. I would also like to have a tap that I turn on for the water. I also pray that I will have the ability to educate my children. I want them to have a university education. I want my daughter to be an example to the other girls in this slum."

Claire Aston from Christian Aid Scotland says: "In these difficult financial times, the world's poorest people need our support more than ever. Donations during this year's Christian Aid Week will enable us to support communities in Nairobi and elsewhere as they work their way out of poverty."

Christian Aid week is 9-15 May. The book sale at St Andrew's and St George's West church, 13 George Street, Edinburgh, runs from 8-14 May (closed Sunday 9 May), www.caweek.org

This article was first published in The Scotsman on Saturday, May 1, 2010