Tearfund Advocacy case study
Community work in the slums of Nairobi
Background
St. John’s Community Centre is located in
the Pumwani area of Nairobi. Pumwani
started in the 1920s and was one of the first
areas to be inhabited by slum dwellers. It
now has 30,000 people living there.
community workshops to deepen the
learning from the drama.
St John’s Community Centre was set up in
1957 by the Church Missionary Society to
address the social and psychological
problems of the Pumwani community, with
a focus on welfare provision. In the 1990's
St John's changed its focus and began
working on sustainable development at the
community level. They launched health,
education and skills development
programmes, as well as those addressing
human rights and HIV/AIDS.
Police practice
Many members of the community, especially
the young, are prone to suffer from police
harassment. A senior policeman was killed
in February 2002, which has resulted in
more police harassment and arrests.
Community members are now taught to ask
about their rights if police arrest them, and
not to let harassment go unreported or
unchallenged. They are also educated about
the police structures so they know how to
complain about harassment. Police now
know they will not get away with these
former practices and some corrupt officers
fear for their jobs!
Some examples of how St John’s has
worked with communities to know and
exercise their rights are given below.
Teaching rights through drama
As the work of St John’s has progressed
they have focused on educating community
members in their rights and training them to
defend their own rights ie to do their own
advocacy. They have helped community
members to understand their situations, to
gain the necessary information to
understand their rights, and to have contact
with professional organisations who will be
able to give them in-depth advice and
support.
For example a lady was badly injured and,
after going to hospital, she asked the police
to arrest the man. However, they kept
putting it off so St John’s put her in touch
with legal specialists who helped her stand
up to the police. Because she knew her
rights she was able to challenge the police
inaction with the relevant government
authority. Those in higher authority then
demanded the police to arrest the man
within 24 hours.
The educational work predominantly uses
dance, drama and poems to engage and
educate the community on their rights. First
of all, St John’s networks with community
groups to identify the problems surrounding
an issue and to develop an appropriate
programme. Then they visit the community,
perform some drama, and have a discussion
with the audience in the interval. Staff will
sit in the crowd to help with the discussions.
Finally the staff distribute literature and
contact details so the community members
who are not there can find out about the
issues and others can follow up if they sowish. On top of this, St John’s runs
Child abuse
Child abuse is common in the Pumwani area
and seeking justice in this area is difficult.
The communities can feel helpless as the
offender often runs away if caught and cases
that are pursued may go to the local chief,
which sometimes results in bribes being paid
and the case being ‘settled’ out of court.
Through the St John’s non-formal school
children learn about their human rights and
are encouraged to stand up for them when
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they are violated. Through a Human Rights
Club at the school the children decide what
issues they want to address and will often
address it in a drama.
community so that they can effectively
defend their own rights, as opposed to
relying on outside help.
Networking
St John’s provide education and information
on the issues on which they work, and make
that available to the community. For
example they have developed a resource
centre, stocked with books and newspapers
for the community members to use. They
also translate the information into Swahili.
St John’s help members of the community
to link up with other organisations that offer
appropriate services in the area that they
need help in.
When a child is abused the local community
committee will now take the child to
hospital. Working with St John’s, the
community will then seek appropriate help
from other organisations and present the
case to court. Other communities and
organisations are now coming to St John’s
to ask for similar training.
Land grabbing
Due to the central location of Pumwani the
land is increasingly under the threat of being
grabbed by rich business people for
themselves. St John’s has been involved in
educating the community about land rights.
An area of land in Majengo is one such
example. The Kenyan government built a
high-rise building for flats on a plot of land
and left some empty land on the plot for
future use by the community. This empty
land was then ‘bought’ privately for
development. After finding out about the
land, the community built a fence around it
and erected a sign saying “No land grabbing
in Majengo”. This has so far deterred any
development on the site and maintained
ownership for the slum community.
St John's have also networked with the local
government, local church and
mosque ensuring that they are involved all
areas of their work. They have also got
involved with the relevant committees at the
divisional and district levels, such as the
District Children Advisory Committee and
the Kamukunji Constituency AIDS Control
Committee.
Key advocacy learning points
- Education so people knew their rights
- Links to expert help
- Relevant techniques to raise awareness
- Training people to defend their rights
- Used existing legal system
- Open and co-operative approach
Para-legal Training
St John’s are planning to train a number of
community members in legal training and
knowledge. The trained people will then
educate people on their rights, covering
topics like the ones mentioned above. The
aim is to set up a para-legal task force in the
Matt Freer, April 2002
matt.freer@tearfund.org
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