Today was going to be our first meeting with the Soweto Savings Scheme, a group that organized with help from Pamoja Trust and Umande Trust to build capital within a community usually excluded from the finance world. The group has evolved into a strong community network, and our partners at Pamoja encouraged us to reach out to them directly to communicate on Map Kibera, as there were bound to be many questions and concerns about a mapping project in Kibera. I was honored to have the chance to sit with them, and we were earlier rapidly organizing logistics to get down to the initial meeting point at Laini Saba Stage.
George from Pamoja just now called to say the meeting was postponed, because the Soweto Savings Scheme members were instead going to visit and show solidarity with neighbors that had lost family members in conflicts in Kibera yesterday and today. We want to express our solidarity as well, and hope that calm can be present in this difficult time.
AP reports a dispute in Kibera has erupted into violence. Apparently, the conflict began between a church and vendors that had erected stalls that obstructed the path to the church, a common enough seeming conflict in extremely cramped Kibera. AP says the church hired Nubian youths to destroy the structures, built by Luhya traders, and this as expected had tragic ends. The interplay of ethnic, religious, and spatial stresses here are complicated, and from this report it’s not entirely clear where, who, what, and why this happened. Hoping to find out more as we talk to our colleagues here.
Yesterday we had noticed worrying smoke rising out of the center of Kibera, northwest of us as we came back into Nairobi along Langata Road. The wire photos show burning structures along the railway line, leading me to guess that the location was around either the villages of Mashimoni or Kambi Muru.
For Map Kibera, an urgent reminder of the challenges and needs that meet our effort to make the invisible visible in Kibera.
Update
Capital FM and East African Standard have more details. The incident happened a little further west, in Kisumu Ndogo village.