The Safe and Inclusive Cities program seeks to support a diverse and strong civil society to influence urban governance and development processes and contribute to making cities safe and inclusive for young women and men. The four year project was funded by DANIDA/Plan Denmark and was implemented in four countries, namely Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Ethiopia. In Kenya it was implemented in two cities, six settlements and 15 administrative wards in Nairobi and Kisumu. In Kenya the project had three partners, namely Plan Kenya, Uraia Trust and the Muungano Alliance. The partners were working towards the following Theory of Change.
The Muungano Alliance represents the combined force of three organization’s namely- Muungano wa Wanavijiji; the Kenyan federation of slum dwellers, the urban poor fund; Akiba Mashinani Trust, and the federation's support NGO; SDI Kenya. Together, the Alliance works for slums to be improved, integrated into the city fabric and for the lives of slum dwellers to be improved. The Alliance supports grassroots communities to influence practice and policy in favor of greater inclusion and equity. The Alliance's mission is to negotiate, design, and deliver real improvements to poor people's lives and we work with a variety of partners in academia, government, and civil society to achieve this change. SDI-Kenya, acts as the secretariat for the federation, supporting the federation to implement programs geared towards catalyzing change at all levels and deliver real improvements within the communities. Among some of its various precedence-setting programs include the Safe and Inclusive Cities (S.A.I.C) .
The Safe and Inclusive Cities program involved various partners including Muungano/SDI-Kenya during implementation. Muungano Alliance supported implementation of the program and advance two key outcomes: namely; urban violence and conflict declined and safe decent and sustainable economic opportunities.
Situational analysis
It has been the Alliance's culture to undertake community-led data collection to collectively analyze the situation in the settlements and guide implementation pathways for all our interventions. Youth, in partnership with SDI-Kenya and Akiba Mashinani Trust (AMT), developed several tools to assess the situation in the six informal settlements slated for implementation. The tools included the Youth Safety Profile which included questionnaires administered by the youth at the household level. These were focused on gathering information on the safety concerns facing the youth and the general community. The data gathered revealed the nature of crime, crime contributors, crime prevalent areas, response effectiveness to crime outcry, and the safety initiatives which can be introduced/maintained to promote overall safety. This tool was accompanied by a mapping process explained below. A second tool developed was the Youth Capacity Audit. This tool was also administered at household level with an intent to generate data on the decent income levels through understanding the employment opportunities available, challenges faced by youth and women in the employment sector, entrepreneurship challenges, the unemployed population (dependency bracket) and membership to groups. Groups have emerged vital as they provide avenues for savings and loans acquisition among other services. A third tool was the microfinance Institutions mapping tool. The tool was administered in form of a survey and was carried out exhaustively on the existing microfinance institutions within the project areas (90 institutions across the six settlements) . The survey endeavored to understand the nature of MFI’s, their credit and debit services, level of borrowing from residents, delinquency rates and reasons, the ability of youth to borrow and save within these institutions, and whether they have any youth friendly products. The fourth tool was the commodity market value chain analysis tool. This tool was administered to specific youth groups that were sampled. The tool focused on gathering data on the commodities youth are inclined to use, the players/actors in the value chain, actors involved in the production process, demand and supply of the commodities, quality requirements that buyers are looking for, pricing of the commodities, business development services (BDS) available, providers of BDS, and gaps in BDS sector. The fifth tool was the Employers Survey. This targeted different employers across the settlements and assessed the employment opportunities available to the local area residents. Finally a technical vocational educational training tool was developed and administered to all the existing TVET’s institutions present across all the project areas. Among some of the information gathered provided insights to preferred courses by learners and employers, eligibility criteria for admission to schools, and flexibility of the schools to offer skills that are aligned to informal area needs. The findings from this research produced a rich situational analysis that was validated in various settlement forums. Additionally, the data gathered was used in designing the various interventions under each outcome.
Mapping
During the FGD’s undertaken as part of the research, the youth mapped and identified the major safety concerns in their settlements. The concerns raised included; police harassment/extrajudicial killings, theft and mugging, rape, unemployment among the youth and violence among youth groups for community spaces to conduct business operations. During the Mukuru FGD, it emerged that crime rates escalate at night as a result of the altered street lights, fueling crime in designated areas. The following map, candidly reveals community hotspots as identified by the youth in Mukuru.
Urban violence and conflict declined.
S.A.I.Cs theory of Change is based on the following basis; key key drivers of urban fragility in Nairobi and Kisumu are insecurity, unemployment and limited participation in decision-making. The program further acknowledges that both urban youth and relevant authorities/partners have capacity and creative resources to address these key drivers of urban fragility. The program recognizes addressing these drivers concretely will contribute to making cities safer, more economically dynamic and more inclusive for young women and men. To achieve this outcome (urban violence and conflict declined) various activities were identified, including safety trainings, safety campaigns, safety initiatives and peer-to-peer exchanges. Each of these activities intended to contribute to achievement of the outcome. In total, 60 local peer-to-peer exchanges were conducted in Nairobi and Kisumu to collectively generate safety solutions; 66 safety initiatives and campaigns were completed aiming to sensitize on safety at community level; and over 4,000 youth benefited directly from the safety trainings. As a result of these activities it emerged, youth groups had begun working together to reduce urban violence and conflict. In particular, groups in Mathare had frequent ongoing wrangles regarding the control of resources generated from garbage collection, sanitation and water. Owing to the constant engagement of youth within the program via the safety training rolled out by area mobilizers, a good relationship was gradually fostered among the groups. Additionally, through the safety campaigns and initiatives, good relationships were also fostered among the youth and duty bearers. The youth from Huruma took centerstage in demonstrating the possibility of youth and area police cultivating a positive relationship. This relationship was forged to combat the high cases of police harassment revealed during the mapping process. This consequently declined as a result of the positive relationship fostered. Hard-to-reach youth from Mukuru kwa Njenga, who had faced drug and substance abuse challenges were organized into a youth group called "Milimani Youth Group". The difference observed among the youth after joining the group was significant and it is clear many individuals have reformed. In conclusion, the end-line evaluation report is yet to be published, but anecdotal evidence of impact from the youth groups is highly encouraging. See below for a sneak peek of additional success stories filmed by Muungano's Know Your City TV youth.
The program offered the young people an opportunity to be change-makers in their communities through participating in the safety training, campaigns and initiatives supported. Youth developed the capacity to petition duty bearers and advocate for relevant services and lobby for opportunities. The youth have also created safe spaces where they can hold dialogues with the community at large and come up with strategies to address community safety issues. During the program young people emerged as young activists (human rights defenders) with a zeal to break the harmful social norms that plague their community. For instance, youth in Kisumu Nyalenda and Kondele routinely invited organizations addressing gender-based violence (SGBV) in their forums to continuously hold sensitization dialogues. The project also created safe spaces for youth groups to peacefully address their differences. It was highly encouraging seeing the young people take safety issues beyond dialogues they held with the police and think of other community safety issues such as flooding. Youth from Mukuru leveraged on an existing partnership with Kenya Red Cross to garner support and hold a dialogue to sensitize the community on the threats posed by flooding and the dangers of living on riparian land. The dialogue aimed at creating awareness of the dangers posed by heavy rains and flash flooding. Such dialogues reinforced the need for people to relocate to safer grounds early enough, before the heavy rains to avoid disasters. After the dialogue, the youth later organized a tree planting exercise along the river to reinforce its banks and included institutions mandated to create awareness on issues of flooding such as community churches, health centers and schools. Amusha Youth Group in Mukuru kwa Njenga leveraged on a partnership with MTN Kenya which was formed through the program. The partnership provided an opportunity for the youth to revamp their community hall. Computers were installed within their resource center and electricity connection was delivered to their waste management site enabling them to shred plastic waste and sell it for value addition. The group also received a 3D printer for use in producing plastic designs for sale and eventually create a decent income. These developments foresaw their community resource center become a thriving safe space. S.A.I.C program further supported exchanges in Mathare, and consequently, youth gained interest in advocating for a settlement-wide development agenda through the institution of a Special Planning Area (SPA). The declaration of SPA allows the state to halt the developments within an area providing an opportunity for the area residents to plan their development. The youth have taken the lead in this process with support from Muungano wa Wananvijij. Such initiatives are indicators that the young people have become real change agents in the community.
Safe decent and sustainable economic opportunities
Youth grapple with various challenges such as unemployment and this equally impacts on their standards of living. Due to the lack of opportunities, the young population may resort to criminal activities to earn an income. S.A.I.C program, therefore, aimed to innovatively address such emerging issues facing the youth using youth-led initiatives and eventually drive youth economic empowerment. The program acknowledged that by addressing these emerging youth issues using the devised youth initiatives, safety and security concerns will subsequently be lowered. This outcome explored the level and type of employment among the youth, the dependent population, the literacy level of the population, and the relationship between literacy levels and youth's ability to secure employment. Youth-led research sought to understand skills among young people, the availability of Technical Vocational Educational training to offer skills relevant to the job market, and alternative methods of skills acquisition among the community. Additionally, the research sought to highlight the challenges faced by youth and women in search of job opportunities, the percentage of the population belonging to groups and their eligibility to access loans. The research also details the transition rate of youth from higher learning institutions to the job market. In addition,the research sought to understand the employment/business opportunities existing, the readily available skills in the market and the highly demanded skills by employers. Challenges faced by entrepreneurs were also explored and the support they need to curb the stated challenges. The S.A.I.C project supported the youth to devise initiatives, campaigns and dialogues which acted as opportunities to market their income generating activities. These initiatives included community exhibitions, economic empowerment campaigns, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, career guidance, mentorship, life and technical skills training. In total, 3,571 young men and women benefited directly from the economic empowerment trainings and 30 youth-led economic empowerment campaigns and initiatives which took place. These interventions were undertaken to achieve the "Safe decent and sustainable economic opportunities" outcome. Over the implementation period, the youth created a concrete partnership with Build her - a local NGO offering construction, carpentry and joinery skills to young hard-to-reach women within Mathare and Huruma informal settlements. This partnership drew in a large cohort of the young girls that were engaged in the S.A.I.C program after having the opportunity to go through a nine-month course with Buildher. During the course, six months are dedicated to class work and training and three months to internship/attachments. In addition, through the program, over 100 youth groups were registered by the office of Social Development. This milestone allows young people to access government affirmative funds such as the Youth Fund, Uwezo Fund and the Women Fund. Other success stories are recorded in both Kisumu and Nairobi where youth groups have received these funds. One notable learning lesson from the groups that managed to receive the government funding emerged as; securing such funding requires groups to comply to a lot of bureaucracy that may prompt groups to quit the process. Additionally, it emmerged, such processes are often marred by corruption hence a growing need to establish an independent friendly-youth fund by Muungano and can eventually be adopted by the government.
Under this outcome, the youth also managed to adopt a 'savings practice' such as table banking, and savings challenge, while others saved in the banks. This is a culture that hadn't been embraced by the young people, but through the consistent follow-ups by the youth mobilizers in each settlement, the youth started saving in their groups. Youth from Huruma have set the pace thus far, having begun to practice savings and proper record keeping in their groups. They have gone further to prepare plans to invest and are exploring options such as collectively purchasing assets.
An interesting observable change resulting from the interventions designed to achieve this outcome was the formation of Youth Networks/Community Based Organizations (ie. the consolidation of youth groups) across the implementation areas. Through the program, 3 youth networks were formed and 1 CBO was formed in Kisumu. In Huruma two Youth Networks were formed, one in Mathare and in Kisumu, Nyalenda the youth formed 1 CBO.
Safe and inclusive cities as a youth-led ,adult advised and technically supported project.
This means young people take the lead from the initial stage of identifying their safety concerns or challenges in accessing economic opportunities within their society and further developing strategies to address the issues. Through S.A.I.C the young people had the opportunity to research, design, plan, implement, and monitor the program. In addition, they were able to mobilize the relevant duty bearers to take part in their initiatives dialogue with them and manage their campaigns. In the process, the youth were able to gain meaningful leadership skills and maintain ownership of the program. This contributed positively to shifting the perception of young people in their communities. When young people are allowed to identify their needs, they are in a better position to propose and bring change in their respective communities. The senior federation leaders also walked with the youth to motivate them in the journey of advocacy as it's tough along the way and the youth can easily give up. They also played a significant role in capacity building the groups that were formed through regular follow up and their level of engagement mentored the youth on the processes required for collective decision making. SDI-Kenya and Akiba Mashinani Trust played a key role in taking up the issues raised by the youth and supporting the youth to make connections with the relevant duty bearers for action. The organizations were also the budget holders in the project.
What constitutes youth-led methodology?
What is a youth led project? This is one of the biggest questions youth ask. Does youth-led mean youth simply implement activities designed for them by development partners? Does it mean youth take the lead in key roles in implementation such as design and decision making? Since inception of the project (SAIC), Muungano wa Wanavijiji agreed youth would participate in designing the strategy, the activities, manage implementation, conduct research, produce documentation and carry out follow up/monitoring. Other than this, quarterly planning and reflection meetings were held with the youth to receive their feedback on the program and identify the missteps and success stories. This, according to the youth team, was a truly youth-led methodology.
Youth telling the story.
SAIC was an eye opener for young people to discover the power and the rights that they are entitled to and how to approach relevant authorities. It helped them to understand how to demand accountability and relevant services that they are entitled to as the community. A few years ago young people were not able to visit the Area OCS or even write a letter to ask critical questions on matters concerning security. But, right now they are able to do so. This was also a platform for young people to discover they are the change that society needs. They were not aware of this when we were organizing meetings and only blamed leaders. Now they know their role to hold leaders accountable and present their views on what they want. This has created a platform for them to interact locally through group visits that they organized themselves in Mukuru kwa Njenga. These platforms allow the groups to understand more on what each and every group is doing and to share ideas on how they can improve. Young people are now united. Speaking one language against oppression. Recently young people organized themselves against land grabbers who forcefully evicted us and wanted to demarcate the land unlawfully - all the while protected by police. Our method of organizing is what has made people start rebuilding right now. The challenge we had about the project is that it was not exactly youth led as per say. The youth agenda keeps on changing and the project was committed to a certain angle. Access to finance to start and run businesses was not achieved. Young people have information and know how it is important to save but the business environment needs good capital so that one can start and run a business. We were not able to give them loans or grants to run businesses and government funds are not available for them. By Anami Daudi Mukuru Kwa Njenga .
First I must say that S.A.I.C has really impacted the knowledge of the youth. This was very much a youth-led project, from decision making to messaging. I remember the peace procession in Mathare that was done by the youths for the youths. It was very impactful. I have grown my capacity in understanding community organizing, conflict management and resolution amongst young people. By Pauline Waigumo~ Mathare.
It is clear that majority of youth between age 18 to 25 are the most vulnerable especially when it comes to crime engagement and livelihood needs hence the need to train and engage them on financial literacy through decent work component and also helping them in understanding the community through the safety component. Decent work was aimed at equipping the youths with financial skills such as formulation of business plan, sourcing out capital to start and run both existing and non-existing business, all this was aimed at reducing dependency rate among young people by creating self-employment.
The safety component involved community mapping. This allowed the youth to identify the safe and unsafe areas within their community, identifying most relevant duty bearers that young people can easily access while looking to tackle issues affecting them. Identifying duty bearers and the various community hotspots, aimed at helping community members understand the safe and unsafe areas within their communities and facilitate youth in lobbying for resources that may improve community's development status from both the government and a civil society organizations.
The Safe and Inclusive project came at the right time when crime was much more rampant in the year 2017, many young people lost their lives as a result of extra judicial executions by police as a result of engaging in criminal activity. The safety component in the Safe and Inclusive project was of much help to young people who were either at the verge of engaging in crime as a result peer pressure or were already engaging in criminal activities but wanted to quit and they didn't know how. The safety component helped the youth in understanding their communities and the dynamics around.
The project was aimed at supporting the overall advocacy efforts such as, advocating for resources. The component additionally supported the youth to understand the various practical ways to engage they could engage with their duty bearers duty bearers . Decent work component helped in ensuring that participant understand the terms when starting and operating legal business by following the policies in regard to business
I was also happy to be part of the project as a trainer/mobilizer in Mathare. The project helped me a lot in starting a small scale business where I sell clothes. I gained the entrepreneurial knowledge from the training I facilitated as a trainer. I would recommend that Safe and Inclusive Cities be extended in order to reach more youths in the community. The project should also offer startup capital upon completion of decent work training. Jacob Omondi ~Mathare
SAIC has impacted youths in so many ways. Many youths have now started their own business which is either managed individually or as a group. This has reduced unemployment and idle youth in our community. Youths can also write letters to banks and request for loans or seek support from the Youth Fund for their businesses. I think it is important that we come up with projects that can support setting up a hub for mental health. Such a hub would allow youths to access counsellors and receive counselling, as most face challenges and are unable to talk about. Suicides have increased amongst youths and this needs to be addressed to increase safety. By Zainab Emily ~Mukuru Kwa Reuben
S.A.I.C is a project that started with an aim to teach youths on safety and decent work. Being the lead person on safety and decent work in Viwandani, I managed to train a lot of youths in the community and it was very helpful since they learnt a lot of things they didn't know. They also began to teach other youths eg. how to identifying hotspot areas and this gave them courage to have discussions with our police, which led us to have some initiatives to bring the youths and community together to solve some of safety concern issues.
On decent work the youths were trained on how to save their money and the importance of this practice. Also the youths united and shared ideas on their saving experiences and the challenges they faced. We also had youth conventions whereby stakeholders and bank officials were invited to talk to the youths on how to manage their money, savings, how to apply for loans, how to start up a business and how to invest. Many youth groups were happy with these opportunities since most of them are jobless. We should have more trainings and youth led activities in the community since the youths will feel they are part of it. Working for the youth boosted my confidence because at first it was hard but latter on I managed. It also gave me courage to become a leader amongst youth. This experience was nice but I also faced some challenges, but always found a solution for it. By Nurdin Nura~ Mukuru Viwandani
S.A.I.C project gave youths a platform to know that they are the biggest stakeholders in our nation beginning from the village level. As I was facilitating the project within my area, I realized that youths need people or a person to motivate and empower them to know where they can get youth friendly services. Also we created a movement where the youth can communicate, share ideas, challenges and opportunities that are within their locality. Last but not least, we shared on how to invest as young people - including the power of savings, capital investments, skills development among others. My wish is for the project to continue, but to give slum youth a chance to present their challenges and solutions on how to drive it even better and tailor it more to their pressing needs. My other wish is to have a movement that will bring government to the table with young people so they can present their opinions and proposals for solving challenges affecting youths from all levels. John Kimani Huruma
My journey through S.A.I.C was a breakthrough for me. As a community leader, I was adamant in breaking the cycle of gatekeepers in my community. I had an obligation and I want to believe I achieved it. It was heartbreaking to be in a room full of vibrant youths and only one person could answers questions because the rest thought that the only people with the right to know facts about our community are the village elders and influential persons. Throughout the project I walked with the youths and am humbled to say it was an exciting journey. I not only got to exercise my leadership skills, but I dared myself to achieve what was expected of me. It was also gratifying to see youths come from a point of not knowing their rights and how to access information, to a place where they are aware that the power is in them to transform their communities and have a better and just community. Christine Wambui~Huruma
During my journey within the program I was trained on safety, decent work and the value of understanding the law. I was involved majorly in mobilizing community youths and mobilizing youth groups. Some of the activities I liked most were having youths conduct outreaches using sports and dances as a tools of communication and sensitization. It was also a good experience to hold an exhibition amongst community groups who showcased their skills in terms of decent work as well as having youths develop wall murals. These activities have impacted the youths in my community for it gave them room to be aware of government services especially for the youths in terms of getting financial support. The sessions boosted our voices ad we learnt to network with other institutions as well as interact with administrators like chiefs freely. This made it easy for youths to make more visits at the government facilities. The program gave us skills to understand how we can develop our own business plans and ideas as well as resource mobilization. By David Ndinda~Kibera
S.A.I.C project created a platform for me to improve specifically on mobilizing and organizing the youth in Kibera. I organized three administrative wards, namely: Makina, Lindi and Sarangombe. This made me engage with more young people and even the duty bearers. I also had an opportunity to work with the hard-to-reach and by this I mean the men and women in crime. Although at some point along the way I lost one of the young men that I was helping reform and this was so overwhelming to me as he had undergone safety training with me. It's sad that he was ganged down. Other than this I saw groups groups being registered with the office of the SDO and moreso young people reformed and they are now engaged in running businesses they developed with support from the decent work training. Anyone coming to the settlement can feel the impact in the community. Many have now dropped the fear that they had towards the duty bearers, more so the police and the administration - that is the Chief and the District County Commissioner. We have groups that were given loans and grants by other partners. A good example is the community mappers - a group of young people who have benefited from Muungano wa Wanavijiji mapping exercise who were able to get a grant to map out and research waste management and start a food eatery called Slum Bunk. All this is as a result of exposure that the SAIC project has given us. For me the biggest challenge was the lack of flexibility within the project. Moving forward I would advise that the young people should be given an opportunity to design programs and manage them all through as we did with this project. By Nisera Wanjiru ~Kibera
The project has had impact in the community and this was realized during monitoring and evaluation, especially towards the end of the project. The youth have been able to start off their small businesses and are able to network with other youth groups. We also noted that some groups were not reached during the trainings (decent income and safety) and we aim to reach them as we have the capacity to. We also realized that the youth were able to plan and conduct activities on their own without the support of adults. I hope the project will continue so that we can reach more youth and also the untrained groups and create a platform for them to express their ideas and demand services from the authorities. This will eventually foresee the settlements become upgraded and the community enjoy services like other formal areas. By George Ondiek ~Kisumu
The SAIC project was a good program which helped so many youth discover their potential through capacity building and creating linkages for the youth through all the interventions supported. It also gave the youth a platform to come together and have discussions on saving and loaning and this enabled youth to start several businesses which has helped reduce idleness hence making crime and security in our communities reduce drastically. I think the project should continue as it has created a space for youth and it will enable us to continue following up to and further support the various youth in their journeys. The Covid-19 pandemic also affected most of the youth in the community in terms of savings and mental health cases and this is the next safety concern that should be incorporated moving forward. By Thomas Sankara~ Kisumu
Next steps
Even as the Safe and Inclusive Cities program phases out we feel that the project has given us an opportunity to build a strong cadre of young activists capable of advocating for the rights of our communities and implementing programs to make them safer and more inclusive. We know these skills are transferrable to other programs and our movement is sustainable. We will continue to make change and transform our settlements and our cities for the better.
The project highlighted the power of youth-led development initiatives. It challenges development partners to ensure youth from the Global South are involved in program design from the outset - usually the exclusive privilege of development agency staff in the Global North. With greater consultation at this stage programs will be more responsive, impactful, and sustainable.
Muungano youth have taken the step of developing their own Theory of Transformation and are actively seeking development partners committed to truly youth-led development to join us on our journey to make lasting change in our communities and cities. We understand that safety and security and improved economic livelihoods are two key outcomes prioritized by youth, but also know these intersect with our priority to upgrade settlements, to improve health and wellbeing, and to ensure quality education. Muungano wa Wanavijiji has fully embraced the youth agenda and brought youth into key leadership positions within the movement, ensuring youth play a key role in decision making and strategy setting. Muungano will also strive to see that we establish Youth Fund to showcase a model that works to build the economic livelihoods of youth in informal settlements.
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