A section of the incomplete Ruai Street Children's Rehabilitation Centre. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION MEDIA GROUP
A project that was seen as a masterstroke in the effort to rid
Nairobi of street families seems to have fizzled out as soon as it
started.
In July 2015, then Nairobi Governor Evans
Kidero announced that his administration was putting up a street
children’s rehabilitation centre in Ruai, Kasarani Sub-county.
The
facility would cost the taxpayers Sh200 million. Once complete, the
Ruai Street Children’s Rehabilitation Centre would accommodate 3,000
street families and offer pre-primary, primary and secondary education.
The
centre would also feature a modern vocational and training centre to
teach practical courses. A football pitch, basketball court and an
indoor games arena were some of the planned recreational facilities.
“There will be psycho-social workers and other experts on hand to
support the families and children that may have challenges arising from
their tough life on the streets,” Dr Kidero said at the time.
There
was so much fanfare around the project, even the national government
chipped in, promising to donate more land for the cause. In total, 40
acres were set aside.
STREET CHILDREN
For the first time in the history of the city, authorities had
demonstrated commitment to addressing the long-standing menace once and
for all. Coming at a time when the Consortium of Street Children
estimated street families in the city to be upwards of 60,000, the
project was a timely magic wand.
Previous
efforts to rid the city of the families had flopped in spectacular
fashion, often because of ineffective approaches. Street families would
normally be arrested and locked up. Soon after release, they would
return to the streets.
According to then Education, Youth and Social Services executive Anne Lokidor, the centre would be up and running by June 2017.
Kidero’s
administration also approved Sh150 million for the project in 2016. In
late 2017, the county leadership shifted from Dr Kidero to Mr Mike
Sonko, who allocated a further Sh1.5 billion in 2017 for mapping,
rehabilitation and training of street families in the city.
Four
years later, all there is to show is a barely developed shell of a
building – a far cry from the ultra-modern training centre that was
promised. Building equipment and other construction materials lie unused
and rusting all over the compound. Some sections of the fence are
rotting and falling off.
Mr Elkana Jacob, the county
government’s communications director, says the facility is “48 per cent
complete (and) moving with much speed” even as evidence on the ground
tells a story of mismanagement and neglect.
REHABILITATION
Workers
at the construction site, some of whom have worked here since the
project began in 2016 and who spoke on condition of anonymity, say the
project has stalled on different occasions, the longest period being
more than a year from 2016 to mid-2018.
The
rehabilitation centre was one of the incomplete projects mentioned in
Auditor General Edward Ouko’s report last year. When Mr Ouko visited the
centre in 2016, works valued at Sh21 million had been certified for
payment, but no cent had been paid yet, forcing the contractor to
abandon the work.
Supplies, the workers at the site said, come in a trickle, usually on a need basis. When the Saturday Nation visited the construction site earlier this week, the manager was away in Nairobi “to collect materials.”
At
the time of our visit, there was minimal activity at the site. Only
eight men were on duty – two masons and six construction hands. The
team, we learnt, has consistently worked at the site for five days every
week since February this year. But even though construction works
resumed in 2018, only incomplete walls on what is supposed to be the
first floor of the building stand as evidence of work. Representatives
of the contractor, Tecina General Contractors, are rarely at the site,
the Saturday Nation learnt.
Mr
Shem Ombura, the county director of social services, says only Sh29
million has so far been paid to the contractor, with an additional Sh20
million budgeted for in the current financial year. He also blames the
current state of affairs on the previous administration.
CONSTRUCTION STOPPED
“Kidero
did not pay any money to the contractor. The money had been allocated,
but none was paid. This is why the construction stopped.” However,
contrary to what Mr Jacob said, Mr Ombura noted that the project is now
35 per cent complete.
Ironically, the county this week
vowed to continue its crackdown on street families to “reunite them with
their families”, in what appears to be a change of tune on earlier
efforts to rehabilitate and offer them practical skills for
self-dependence.
Furthermore, the county claims in the
last two years under Governor Sonko, the number of street families in
the capital has dropped to 40,000 from 60,000 during Dr Kidero’s term.
Education,
Social Services and Gender executive Lucia Mulwa says 20,000 street
children have been reunited with their families since Mr Sonko came to
power. There is, however, scanty evidence that these street children
have indeed rejoined their families or even been rehabilitated.
To
put this into perspective, Nairobi County has only four rehabilitation
centres, which the county is renovating at a cost of Sh21 million.
The
four are Mji wa Huruma in Kayole, Makadara, Shauri Moyo and Joseph
Kang’ethe, all with a combined capacity of less than 300 children.
Strained
resources and inadequate capacity to accommodate large numbers of
children has often been counterproductive, as most of those arrested and
put here end up suffering.
RUAI PROJECT
So
what happened to the Ruai project? How was the money allocated spent?
Is there hope that the centre will reach completion? If so, when?
Queries
by the Saturday Nation regarding the project turned into a game of
musical chairs, with none of the officials contacted willing to shed
light on the matter.
First, the Ruai sub-county
administrator, identified only as Jane, appeared to not know its
existence or location. “I can’t talk about that issue. Please contact
the department of education and social services,’’ Jane said before
hanging up.
Officials at City Hall Annex, where the
county executive for education is based, were non-committal. Ms Mulwa
asked this reporter to talk to the department’s chief communication
officer. The officer, Mr Jairus Musumba, said someone else at the county
was better placed to answer our queries, and referred us to Mr Elkana
Jacob.
A source privy to the flow of information at the
county headquarters revealed that while each department has a
spokesperson, officials must get express permission from Mr Jacob before
engaging the media, “to avoid antagonising the county’s position” on
the matter at hand.
As the city authorities refuse to
come clean about how the millions allocated for the project were spent,
or when the project will be completed, if at all, vulnerable street
children continue to suffer. They also put city dwellers at risk of
being mugged as the children become increasingly desperate for food.
Additionally, street children are used as conduits in the drug trade.
For
four years now, Abdulkarim Omar, 16, has relied on hand-outs from city
residents for survival, supplementing this by working as a parking
attendant along Tubman Road and Banda Street.
POVERTY
Omar
reveals that he comes from a family of peasants in Kilifi County. On
many nights, he and his three siblings would go to bed hungry, owing to
extreme poverty levels in the area.
To escape that
poverty, Omar, who was then in Standard Five, hid in a cargo truck and
ended up in the streets of Nairobi. “I have been arrested many times for
being on the streets. Every time, I’m lucky to be released,” he says.
He
offers insights into the state of the existing county rehab centres.
“Last year, I stayed at a rehab for three months. There was so much
suffering. Food was inadequate, sick children were ignored,” he says.
While
the county government promises to take street children back to school
upon arrest, those who spoke to the Saturday Nation revealed that some
of them are kept for up to a year before they are enrolled in any
school. Others are released back into the streets.
Offered
the chance to return home, Omar would not consider it. “I’m better off
begging,” he says. “At least I don’t go for a day without something to
eat. Why go back home to suffer?”
Would he mug? To
survive, yes, he says. “I can’t starve while other people have food and
money to spare. I would use force if I have to.”
When
he scored 301 marks in the 2012 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education
(KCPE) exams, Dennis Mutugi’s life was firmly on course for a decent
future. At least that is what the boy from Embu had hoped for when he
was admitted to Kangaru DEB Secondary School in Embu in 2013.
Then
his mother died and with no one to pay his school fees, Mutugi, 21,
dropped out of Form One. First, he stayed in Embu town taking menial
jobs to fend for himself while trying to figure out his suddenly foggy
future.
ODD JOBS
When
an opportunity to travel to Nairobi came up in 2015, Mutugi did not
think twice. But his arrival in the capital would mark the beginning of
life as a street boy, living from hand to mouth. Four years on, Mutugi
is still navigating the city’s streets. “I live off alms from Good
Samaritans,” he says.
Some days he chances upon odd
jobs in town. “A job could involve loading or offloading a lorry,
washing someone’s car or helping to take garbage from hotels to the
dumpsite. Some days I’m paid, other times I’m short-changed.”
On
extremely bad days, Mutugi eats scraps from trash bins, or goes to
sleep hungry. Such miseries have only heightened his resentment towards
Nairobi’s well-to-do folks “especially those who exploit us. When
someone fails to pay me for work done, I have to use other means.
Sometimes I have to use force,” he says, hinting at mugging.
Like
Omar, the abrupt end of his education means Mutugi cannot look for a
formal job. “If someone could sponsor me, I would happily restart my
secondary studies,” he says. “I have been hoping to acquire a technical
skill so that I work to earn a living. But I don’t have the money to
enroll for a course.”
For many of street denizens,
there is no option about where to live — unless the county government
commits to completing the Ruai centre.
Angel Warira,
19, is wispy, but the hazards of street life have aged the mother of two
children. Sniffing glue and abusing other drugs has not helped her
health either.
SMOKING BHANG
Warira
radiates a lethargic look — admittedly from smoking bhang — and
occasionally conceals her dark crimson eyes by whipping her hand over
her face.
The death of her parents in a road accident
in 2012 and the subsequent hostility of her family in Kirinyaga County
pushed the lastborn child in a family of three children to drop out of
Standard Seven and flee home to seek refuge in Nairobi at the age of 12.
Seven
years and two children later, returning to the village is off the
cards. She fends for her daughter aged five and a toddler of 18 months
exclusively from freebies.
Her hunting ground is mostly
alleys along Muindi Mbingu and Monrovia streets. “I don’t have a job,”
says the lactating mother. “I can’t get a job because I don’t have any
certificate or an identity card. Without any skill or money to start a
business, how else can my children and I survive?” she asks.
Life
on the streets knows no courtesy, and when food gifts and money are not
forthcoming, mothers fight for the little that comes their way. A
mother has to be agile and fast lest they and their child starve.
Sometimes
Warira takes laundry jobs in the estates, but even these pay poorly and
some people exploit her desperation by overworking her. For her,
begging is a less strenuous option.
As Mutugi admits,
drug gangs, especially in downtown Nairobi, exploit vulnerable street
boys, sometimes with the threat of violence, to traffic hard drugs on
their behalf. “Most of the boys I know do it for protection, a tip or
food. They have no choice,” Mutugi says. When the police or county
stewards arrest them, they confiscate their money and other possessions.
Sometimes they are even assaulted, Mutugi adds.
STREET FAMILIES
Most
street families have no place to call home besides these streets. “I
have been here for nearly 10 years now,” says a street woman named
Rachael Wamuyu. “My family wouldn’t want to see me.” Wamuyu, 22, cut
ties with her parents and fled her Nyeri home in 2010 following an
unclear dispute. She believes they have since moved on.
Warira
says her relations have abandoned her, and have even dared her to ever
set foot back in what she used to call home. It is for this reason that
she stopped associating with her village folks and decided to chart her
own path in life. To her, family is anyone who shares in her agonies.
“Strangers
who help me to raise my children are more family to me than my uncles
and aunts who made my life miserable,’’ she says reflectively.
Omar,
Mutugi and tens of other urchins eat at a backstreet food kiosk at
Tsunami area off Kirinyaga Road, where remains of ugali, rice and soup
sell for as low as Sh20 a plate.
Mutugi, who looks
fairly decent for a street boy, spends whatever remains of the money
from strangers to buy clothes and shoes at Gikomba and Muthurwa markets.
“I use a public bathroom in town where I pay Sh30 to take a bath,” he
says.
Whereas
he could clean in the river, just like his peers, Mutugi thinks the
river is too filthy for a healthy dive. “Many street families wash their
clothes, bath and swim in Nairobi River. They don’t mind the filth,” he
says. Even to Mutugi, it is strange how none of his peers has ever
contracted a waterborne disease from bathing in the river. Glue-sniffing
and drug abuse among street uechins is not merely a lifestyle, but a
survival mechanism, they tell Saturday Nation. Taking a hit of glue helps to keep the body warm in the frigid conditions outside, especially at night.
CHEST PROBLEMS
“I
used to sniff glue, but after developing chest problems, I stopped,”
Mutugi says, adding that he now smokes bhang to get his mind off his
miseries. “To survive here, you have to be high,” he says wryly.
“Several puffs keep me high for some few hours. Without using any drug,
life here is unbearable.’’
Mutugi’s body features scars
of wounds in various stages of recovery, some from accidents and others
deliberately inflicted on him by county workers.
But
one fresh wound right above his left ankle stands out. “I sustained this
one week ago. I was running from the police when I stepped on a piece
of rusted steel. I had bled a lot, but I managed to avoid arrest,” he
says with a resigned look.
Fleeing does not always end successfully though. There are times when the pursuers corner their target.
“When
they arrest you, county officers force you to strip before attacking
you in turns with whips. This has happened to me on several occasions
when I couldn’t run,’’ he recounts.
At the Makadara Law
Courts where suspects of minor offences are taken, trumped-up charges
such as mugging are often made against them, they say. ‘Kubali ngori’,
Mutugi says, is street parlance for admission of guilt even when the
accused person is not culpable, so that they can be sentenced, failure
to which they are taken to remand for weeks and even months.
“Life
in remand is miserable. Food is very little and the state of hygiene is
also very poor,” Mutugi explains. “Things are much better in jail,” he
adds. “You toil all day long, but at least you are fed properly.”
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