by MIRIAM GATHIGAH
Laina Saba residents can now cook on a communal stove fuelled by garbage. Miriam Gathigah/IPS
NAIROBI, Mar 16, 2011 (IPS) – A community-based organisation in the Kenyan slum area of Kibera set out to clean up garbage and deal with waste water; Ushiriki Wa Safi ended up creating a community cooker that turns waste into an energy source.
Open sewers and piles of garbage are an all too familiar scene in many of Kenya’s poorest urban areas. Local authorities are invisible in most of these slums, and poor public hygiene and the absence of sanitation leaves residents to their own devices to maintain a level of cleanliness and keep diseases like diarrhoea at bay.
But some have seen this as an opportunity to bring change to communities. Ushirika Wa Safi – (loosely translated, the name means “an association to maintain cleanliness” in Swahili) – a community-based organisation in Kibera, was formed to deal with the garbage problem in Laini Saba, one of the thirteen villages that form Kibera slums, often described as Africa’s largest.
The CBO has come up with a remarkable solution in the form of a community cooker that turns garbage into energy. It is a recycling project that is transforming the lives of local residents.
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