to kindle the hidden beauties of these places, so
Hidden beauties
Criterion A
60% of the Nairobian population live in the
disparaged areas of our beautiful home. 2.5+
million people slum dwellers, only covering 6% of
the land. Regardless of the fact that almost
700,000+ Kenyans live jammed in only Kibera, are
faced with a range of daily struggles, minor to no
access to basic needs, I found that people living in
such conditions do their best to not dwell on their
problems.
My project expounds on exploiting the beauty and
ideas of the underprivileged through
photography. The expression of new ideas and
how creativity is communally celebrated is the
basis of my project, in order to then raise
awareness on the stature of the subject matter.
As to so, I have chosen the global context,
‘Personal & Cultural Expression’.
I named my personal project “hidden beauties” as
it is about shining the candle light in the dark. My
goal in this project is to change the perspective of
others on such propagated places, to kill fear and
disparagement. I will be photographing different
places in Nairobi, particularly the slums of the city.
I chose this topic because I would like to help the
less fortunate, help in ways I can to build a
brighter future for my home, Nairobi and open
the closed-minded people around me. I believe
that my project will help change the perspective
of the less-fortuned residents of Nairobi, which
will subsequently, hopefully shed more light on
the problems of such aspects of our society.
I look at photography as the most emotional
branch of artistic expression. A photographer has
the ability to provoke an audience’s emotions and
precision of thought through the simple aspects of
a photograph. Which I will be researching on. In
so saying, my goal in this project is to photograph
certain aspects of the undermined areas of
Nairobi, that bring happiness and hope for the
people living a tough row to hoe. This is in order
as to raise awareness on the living conditions of
the residents to the people who are unaware.
I decided to focus on Kibera, which originated as a
settlement in the forests around old-town-
Nairobi, inhabited by Nubian soldiers who were
given plots of the land by the whites, as awards
after the WW1. Today, Kibera exists as the biggest
slum in Africa, housing more than half of Nairobi’s
population. 150,000 children living in Kibera are
orphaned or/and born to the streets. As the
country progresses, the slum continues to grow
and degrade and to dehumanize, characterized by
abject poverty, corruption, periodic violence and
disease- as a result of the pollution toxically
deteriorating the environment around.
a large number of the residents of Kibera are
reduced to begging due to the lack of
employment and opportunity to earn a living for
individual wellbeing and/or provision of their
families.
I took a 3-day trip back and forth to Kibera,
questioning people and their living standards and
how it affects them. The average house in Kibera
is a 3x3 meter shack, built with mud walls,
concrete, in most cases Iron roofing and walls,
commonly referred to as 'mabati'. A house as such
would be rented out for 700 Ksh a month, and
would house as many as eight, sleeping on the
floor. Only about 30% of Kibera has electricity,
and the UN-Habitat is in the process of providing
it to some parts of Kibera – this will include street
lighting, security lighting and connection to
shacks, which costs 900 ksh per house, and in
majority of cases is unaffordable for the residents.
Kibera had no water and it had to be collected
from the Nairobi dam. The dam water is not clean
and causes typhoid and cholera. Now there are
two mains water pipes into Kibera, one from the
municipal council and one from the World Bank.
Many residents set up buckets to collect
rainwater from their roof when it rains, the
hazards this water contains are too many to
mention, most roofs suffer from the flying toilets
and produce highly contaminated water. In most
of Kibera there are no toilet facilities. One latrine
is shared by up to 50 houses. Once full, young developing the abilities and talents of Kibera’s
boys are employed to empty, and they take the youth.
contents to the river. UN-Habitat and a few other
Such areas are the key of my project, as places like
agencies are trying to help and improve this
this brig out the beauty and light of Kibera, and
situation but it is painfully slow, because of this
morph the image of slum dwellers, to a capable
many Kiberans use the flying toilet. The flying
and talented community. The expression of love
toilet involves a person defecating in a plastic bag
and music, as well as art is vibrant in the area,
and tossing it through the air at night. these are
what I tended to notice quite often. People in
just few of the many unfortunes of the area. much
Kibera don’t sit and grieve their problems, they
attention is needed to pull out kibera and it's
make the most out of their limited lives and are
people out of the abyss of hopelessness it is in,
able to live in joy and companionship -and are
and i hope to help out with my project through
very appreciative of what they call theirs.
raising awareness.
A lot of what I learned in school, was very
It is a sad case, but also an avoidable one, but
valuable on my trip to Kibera, majority of my used
unfortunately the Kenyan government doesn’t
knowledge derived from MYP language subjects;
pay much attention to such unfortunate cases,
Swahili and language and literature. In Kibera,
subsequently birthing dangerous gangs, thieves
everyone speaks Kiswahili, or the redefined slang,
and a spawn of illegal activities going on, all in the
Cheng. Communicating to the residents was 100%
name of survival. Organizations such as DCE
of the time done in Swahili, if not, I wasn’t
(Dance Centre of Kenya) and Anno’s Africa give
speaking at all.
slum dwelling children a chance at hope for a
redefined future, outside of Kibera. People such
as Joel Kioko, fruits of such organizations, who
was born a child of the strain, who’s mother
struggled everyday to provide for he and his two
brothers, is now seen as Kenya’s most promising
male ballet dancer. Such organizations give
people hope, raise awareness of the stature of life
in the slums and lift people out of poverty, all
basing it on the individual’s personal talent.

Another example of such, is the Uweza art school,

which is both an exhibition space and art school.
It’s significant in that Kibera’s kids -in a
community of 250,000 , under constant risk of
disease and misfortune- are freely encouraged to
grow and blossom in a place that nurtures artistic
talent, without interference with their academic
life. It’s a win-win situation for the school and it’s
attendants. Why build a school in the middle of
Africa’s biggest slum? a bustling scene of
ramshackle tin houses and a dysfunctional
railroad lined with garbage? It made perfect sense
to resident Jennifer Sapitro, an American
entrepreneur and public health and international
development graduate who set up the Uweza
Foundation, an organization dedicated to