KDI Blog Lastest happenings and insights from KDI
Kibera
Meet Cynthia Mutia Munyiva – TujengeKibera Award Recipient!
As promised KDI took some time to catch up with TujengeKibera award recipient, Cynthia Mutia Munyiva. We asked her a few questions about who she is and her thoughts on winning the TujengeKibera competition.
Andolo – the last frontier in Kibera – KPSP10
In Nairobi’s informal settlement of Kibera, there’s an area that not only lacks development and infrastructure, but has also seen plenty disaster. The local community calls this area Andolo (meaning deep sleep in sub-tribes of Luyha), where disaster is shaped by a number of challenges, including high levels of illiteracy (few residents have received […]
Habitat III and the New Urban Agenda – Lessons on Understanding Risk and Building Resilience
By: Joe Mulligan and Shreya Mitra
kibera saccos.
Due to the changing face of Kibera, many things have taken different shapes, compare the social activities in the last 5year, the roads and the connectivity through Kibera were very narrow that trucks could not Go thorough from one side to the other, movement of goods was a hustle, inaccessible fire rescue and ambulance […]
El Niño in Kibera
The El Niño. After months of anticipating the coming of El Niño, the intensified, heavy rainfall has arrived in Nairobi as expected. Already the annual long rains has caused noticeable flooding in a number of places in Nairobi and in the country at large. These rains caused both loss of life and property worth […]
Living in the River Lands – Flooding in Kibera
We’re sticking with the watery theme this week as we continue to look at recent game changing developments in Kibera. This time it’s flooding; a destructive force that disrupts and displaces people in Kibera each year, and overlaps with the intractable issues of land ownership, open space, infrastructure development and evictions. In Kibera the cheapest […]
A New Sewer Line in Kibera…
Part of KDI Kenya’s new blog series on the changing face of Kibera. The Need for a New Sewer in Kibera Sewers are one of those things that once tucked away neatly underground most people don’t want or have to think about too much. The benefits of convenience and a sanitary and safe environment are […]
The changing face of Kibera:
Intro to a new blog series by KDI Kenya. Kibera is changing, and changing fast. New roads, water, sewerage and power lines have emerged over the last few months; these networks underpin new health centers, toilet blocks, water kiosks, fish farms and urban agriculture plots. For the first time people can easily catch a matatu […]
KPSP07 Design Workshop 02
The second kibera public space project (KPSP07) workshop happened on the 30 August. The aim of the second workshop was; to capture outstanding information that could not be collected during the first workshop and get the community group to start prioritising the programs (or activities) that they wanted to incorporate in the project. First we […]
KPSP07 Design Workshop 01 .
On 23 August, the design process for KPSP07 started. With this first workshop, KDI’s aim was to understand the context of the space. Through a series of exercises, we asked the 74 community members of the community to provide us with information about the site. The workshop started with an energetic ice breaker, where a […]
KPSP07 PRE-DESIGN WORKSHOP.
This weekend KDI held a pre-design workshop with the community around (Kibera Public Space Project) KPSP07. While this project is moving quickly, we took time last weekend preparing the community for the project design phase, introducing the community to the construction team and engaging the children envisioning of what the space could be. Julius Muiru, […]
Moving forward.
Many people talk about development and best practices… but sometimes all this talk becomes a song that can only be heard while actions go unseen. … There has been lots of action in Kibera. Currently the Empowerment to Community Foundation (EMCOF), a community-based organization in Gatwekera Village of Kibera, and KDI are working together to […]
The Toilet Tours, Part III
After seeing two UDD toilets, a group of 15 of us visited two flower farms north of Nairobi in search of constructed wetlands. The community group at KPSP05 is also exploring sanitation options, and despite currently) lacking funding for wetlands for the site, we still thought it would be great to show them an […]
The Toilet Tours, Part II
Our next stop on the Toilet Tours was another UDD toilet built by Umande Trust. Unlike the Sanergy toilet, this one has been in use. It is not a public toilet, though. Instead, it is shared by a block of approximately 50 households. The concept of the UDDT is the same as the Sanergy Fresh […]
The Toilet Tours, Part I
One of the exciting things about working with KDI is going through the public participation process to ensure their projects have full buy-in from community members. Since being in Nairobi, I have had the opportunity to work on implementing a sanitation block at KPSP01. Since there is no municipal sewer nearby, […]
Karibu Ali and Pearl!
We are excited to introduce you to our two new summer interns who will be working away this summer in Kibera. Ali Karlen joins us from Portland as this summer’s design intern working on KPSP05 and KPSP06. Pearl Grace comes to us from Chelina’s alma mater (Harvard GSD) and will be working at all sites […]
Unslumming Kibera
April here, writing from Nairobi. I’ve been in Kenya for about two weeks working to implement the Unslumming Kibera vision as presented at AECOM’s UrbanSOS competition. As the winners of that competition, the Unslumming Kibera team won $25,000 to bring the project to life. Key to implementation is our partnership with Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI). […]
BAMBOO PLANTING AT KPSP01 part two.
After determining everything and also making an agreement with the New Nairobi Dam Community group the Kenya Bamboo Center team and COOPI representative arrived with some seedlings ready to do practical sessions with the groups the group, about what they meant when they came for the projects. There was a combination of manual work which […]
BAMBOO PLANTING AT KPSP01 part one
Kenya Bamboo Centre representative Mr Pollicurp and Chiara Camozzi from COOPI have been supporting KDI in finding a solution for bamboo treatment, after the termites invaded and attacked some of the bamboos at KDI’s KPSP 03. This brought up an idea of working out a long lasting solution, and also for the future sites. This […]
A Poem for a Celebration
Last week was an exciting one for KDI as we celebrated the opening of our fourth site in Kibera: KPSP04. We wanted to share with you this new site, but first – for those that were able to attend and for those who were not – we wanted to share some words from the chairman […]
Deciding Moments Kenyan Election 2013.
After months of campaigning all over the country and traversing the whole country to sell their policies, Kenya decided on its fourth president. For the first time in Kenyan history since the beginning of multiparty democracy, Kenya had a most peaceful campaign with parties moving freely between areas. The Kenyans exercised political maturity in their […]
Design Workshop for KPSP 05
Between the 26th of January and the 1st of April 2013, we conducted four Design Workshops to initiate our newest project, Kibera Public Space Project 05. Community participants partook in exercises and activities that drew out the information the designers will use to create the project plans. From deciding the programs and businesses to the […]
WATSAN Portal: Kibera
Last June Spatial Collective and Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) met for the first time. The attraction was instant! Spatial Collective is a Nairobi-based social enterprise that develops innovative tools to support collective action. They specialize in data collection, data visualization, and community engagement and have a number of effective and interesting programs in informal settlements […]
KPSP03: The Launch
For a long time the dream of accomplishing this project seemed far from becoming a reality, but now we are happy to say that it has come true. It was not easy bringing KPSP 03 to this point of celebration. Since starting the project in September 2011 with physical construction and clean-ups supported by […]