MOMBASA GRASSROOTS NETWORK GAINS MOMENTUM

Mombasa, the second largest city in Kenya, has some of the most vibrant grassroots and civil society groups in the country. Like most major urban areas the city faces very serious problems especially when it comes to the provision of housing and other basic services. A majority of the residents live in informal settlements including Muoroto, Tudor, Kibarani, Bangladesh and Owino Uhuru among others. When Hakijamii started working in Mombasa in 2007 it became clear that most of the grassroots groups were not working together.

Kibarani Settlement, Mombasa, Kenya

Fortunately most of them had strong desire to find a common platform on which they could galvanize their energies. The arrival of Father Gabriel Dolan in the village of Bangladesh provided a decisive impetus to the process. Within a short period he created a grassroots group called Haki Yetu (Our Rights). Working closely with Haki Yetu and the other grassroots groups in Mombasa, a strong grassroots network composed of twenty community based organizations, has been formed and has achieved success in a number of cases. These include: resisting attempts to forcibly evict residents of Bangladesh by Kenya Railways in 2009, mobilizing against environmental degradation by a battery-making company in Changamwe.

One the most visible successes by the group came on 10th December, 2009 when they organized a human rights day celebration calling for the implementation of the National Land Policy.  It was attended by many including professor Yash Pal Ghai a distinguished international and constitutional scholar and former chairperson of the Constitutional of Kenya Review Commission.

As matters stand now, the future looks very promising for sustained people-led advocacy in the coastal town of Kenya.

Author: Odindo Opiata

Advocacy meeting in Mombasa on 20th August 2010

There is a meeting organized by Hakijamii and Haki Yetu in Mombasa on August 20, 2010 to discuss joint strategies for the implementation of the new constitution.

Double Exploitation in Owinohuru, Mombasa

The village of Owinohuru, located in the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya faces so many challenges that their community organization, the Owinohuru Self-Help Group, is struggling to fight all its battles.

Haki Yetu- “our rights”- is Hakijamii’s main partner organization in Mombasa. Haki Yetu works with community groups in and around the city. John Paul Obonyo is the organization’s Program Officer, and he took us to Owinohuru and provided some history of the village’s issues.

John Paul Obonyo, Program Officer for Haki Yetu, Hakijamii's main partner in Mombasa.

First is the all too common threat of eviction. I have touched on the problem of forced evictions in Kenya (see The Ladder That Runs Down, Eviction Task Force) due to poor land and housing policies. In the 1950s, an Indian family owned the land in Owinohuru. People gradually moved in and set up houses, businesses, churches, and schools. The landowner left, leaving a houseboy to take care of the property. The people of Owinohuru lived there peacefully for 40 or more years. Just recently the landowner (or a relative of, this was unclear when we asked) has spontaneously demanded the land back- likely in order to develop the area- which would force the entire community to leave their homes and livelihoods.

The land case has recently gone to court, and was postponed until September of this year. Though the landowner has papers claiming to have paid KSH 58 million (725,000 USD) for the land, he has not yet produced a title for it. The community hopes that the newly passed constitution, which involves barring non-citizens from absolute ownership of land and power to reclaim grabbed public land, will work in its favor come the next court date. This threat of eviction has consumed the community’s efforts and resources for the time being.

The battery factory, owned by EPZ Metal Refinery Ltd, lies at the entrance of Owinohuru and operates at night so as not to draw attention.

An even more disturbing concern threatens the community’s health: in 2007, a battery recycling factory was installed in the village, producing toxic smoke so thick that community members could hardly breathe when it was operating. Shortly thereafter, people began getting sick, complaining of incessant coughing, difficulty breathing, high fevers, etc. Children were hit the worst and began having trouble learning in school. It was found that several of the children had high levels of lead in their blood.

After outcry from the community, the factory was shut down for a short time, but has since re-opened- operating, shadily, at night. The factory owners refuse to even have a discussion with the community members, doing everything they can to keep it operating.

Because this issue is so heartrending, I have made a video that explains the story through interviews with community members much better than I could ever put in words. Please watch it, and show it to as many people as you can. It seems that the only way for Owinohuru to remove the factory is to bring enough negative attention to the factory that it is forced to shut down completely.

Author: Christy Gillmore first posted on her Advocacy Project Blog

Working to Stop Evictions in Kibarani Settlement, Mombasa, Kenya

Kibarani People’s Settlement (slum, informal settlement) is located in Mombasa along the railway to Uganda.  The residents of Kibarani live in mud brick houses with no running water or electricity.   Life is difficult, but residents like the inexpensive location with a beautiful view of the ocean, fertile soil to plant small gardens, and a bus stop nearby so they can easily travel to wherever they need to go.

View of Kibarani with the container depot in the background. Owners of the depot want to expand into Kibarani. To do this the homes seen above will be demolished and the people residing there will need to relocate.

Kibarani was once the main garbage dump for Mombasa attracting many poor families to come settle and earn a living collecting and recycling trash (plastic, cardboard, metal).  Around 8 years ago the city landfill was relocated to Mwakirunge and parts of Kibarani’s dump were cleaned up making unusable land usable again.  With this newly available land business men saw an opportunity to invest putting up truck yards and container depots.  The poor families that moved to and built homes in Kibarani are now being threatened with eviction by these private developers.

Recently, a truck transport company located next to Kibarani has talked with the local government about buying a plot of land, within Kibarani, to expand their container depot.  To do this they must evict the residents that currently reside there.  The company hired a firm to get the residents of the plot to agree to move for a small sum of money.  The company wrote an agreement to pay residents to leave and got 100 people to sign it.  On the 14^th of July, 2010 there was a notice that the plot had been sold and anyone residing there needed to vacate the land within 14 days.

The local CBO (community based organization) Village Development Committee went to Haki Yetu (a partner of Hakijamii in Mombasa) to ask for help to stop the evictions.  Haki Yetu helped them to identify and make a list of everyone that lived within the plot.  After completing the list they found that only 45 of the 100 people that signed the agreement were actually living in the plot. With this and other information Haki Yetu and the Village Development committee has brought the case to court.

Dan Okongo of the Village Development Committee speaks to us about the pending evictions.

Though there has not been a final decision made on the case residents of Kibarani say that people still come (sometimes at night) to try and evict them.  Dan Okongo ,a  business man that has lived on the plot for 20 years, told us that most people living in the settlement are opposed to any relocation.  “We don’t want to move.  We have houses, businesses, a school, and a church on this plot of land.”

This isn’t the only case of evictions happening in Mombasa or even in Kibarani.  In 2006, Kenya Railways evicted residents of  Kibarani.  They were never given a reason for the eviction and the land has stood idle ever since.  After the eviction, the residents set up camp at the government office that gave the go ahead to evict; refusing to leave until  they were given a place to relocate. Eventually, they were allowed to rebuild on a riparian zone prone to flooding.

The riparian zone where the people evicted by Kenya Railways rebuilt their homes.

In Owinohuru Settlement descendants of former occupants of the land have come back, decades after their family had lived there, claiming they still own the land. They want to sell the land to private developers.  (See Advocacy Project Fellow Christy Gillmore’s Blog to learn more)

If the communities don’t take action on their own they will continue to be exploited.  Groups like Haki Yetu work to empower the people being directly affected so that they can claim their rights.  With assistance from groups like Haki Yetu residents of these communities are learning how to stop private developers from taking the land they have called home for years.

Author: Louis Rezac first posted on his Advocacy Project Blog