Over the last few months, the police have been harassing and illegally detaining young environment defenders in Mathare.
They have also been sanctioning the destruction of our people’s parks and green livelihoods.
We condemn these actions in our strongest voices, and have written a petition to the Inspector General of Police, Douglas Kanja, to put a stop to this criminalization of young people who are involved in ecological work in Mathare.
This petition can be downloaded through this link:
To learn more about the ecological work of youth groups in Mathare, you can watch this short video produced by the Ecological Justice Network, Mathare.
Last week, I had the chance to sit with the Dhobi Women Network/Domestic Workers Network Mathare, as they had a meeting for their table banking practices. This was the Tujikomboe Group; tujikomboe means liberating ourselves.
The group is composed of women who are domestic workers from Mathare but work in Eastleigh. Because of their work, the first point of convergence for these women was not the table banking, but they came together to form a support group in the face of the different violations and exploitation they were undergoing in their work environment, such as rape, assault and not being compensated after work. There are also many cases of their colleagues being killed in the work space.
This Network mobilizes domestic workers to offer each other solidarity. When they are together, they take collective action, advocate for fair labor practices, equitable wages and dignified working conditions. They also educate each other about their rights, so as to enhance their protection from exploitation in their work places.
Dhobi women, like most women in low income areas, also face numerous challenges. For example, they have limited access to formal financial systems and also face gender-based inequalities that restrict their economic independence. Because working as a casual labourer or a domestic worker means engaging in low-wage, unstable and informal employment, these women are often excluded from formal banking services due to a lack of formal identity documents, their irregular income, and other barriers. However, the Network has come up with an innovative solution to their financial struggles: this is a local version of table banking. This practice of community-based savings and lending has proven to be a lifeline, providing economic empowerment and stability to women domestic workers living in Mathare. From a revolving fund of as low as 3500 KES, the Network has been able to grow their savings to 51,000 KES, and have the goals of saving half a million by the end of the year, and buying a washing machine for their collective projects.
How The Network’s Table Banking Works
Table banking is a financial model where a group of people come together to save small amounts of money regularly, and then provide loans to each other at affordable interest rates. The practice is often organized informally within communities, and no formal banking institution is involved. Members of the group contribute whatever amounts they have as shares or savings, and also a booster amount of their liking, and then they are allowed to borrow from the pooled funds, which in this case is called the revolving fund, with the understanding that they will repay the loan within a set period and usually with a very low interest rate compared to formal financial institutions. If the period lapses and you don’t have the whole amount, you can just pay the interest fee and retain the loan, which you will then pay with light interest at the end of the month. Without a doubt, this gives woman domestic workers some level of financial dignity.
The most outstanding thing about the Dhobi Women’s Network is that they not only use this platform to meet their financial needs, but also use it to advance their agenda as domestic workers; it is a support group as well as a site to educate each other.
The savings accumulated through this process can serve as a safety net for emergencies, such as medical expenses or sudden family crises. Additionally, the ability to borrow at low interest rates enables women to invest in income-generating activities, whether it’s starting a small business, buying tools for their park and their work, or paying school fees. Table banking is then a tool for financial independence, since women are able to break the cycle of poverty and increase their economic self-sufficiency
Enhancing Social Justice Through Table Banking
The Network’s table banking has fostered a strong sense of community. For women who often face isolation and marginalization, groups like the Network provide a space for solidarity, collaboration, and mutual support. The relationships built through these groups allows for the sharing of knowledge, shared emotional support, and empowerment of each other both personally and professionally.
Across Mathare, the table banking groups often hold regular meetings that act as platforms for discussing issues affecting them and the larger community. These meetings give women a voice in decision-making processes, both within the group and in their wider community. This sense of agency is crucial for challenging the social norms and barriers that often restrict women, and gives the women back their dignity.
Sadia Bulle or Stellah Omuka, who are domestic workers in the Network, do not need a ton of documentation, credit history or a steady income to access a loan. Since the groups are based on trust, members are not required to provide formal identification or meet rigid financial criteria, as Tina Mfanga puts in her book, Wamachinga Na Haki Jiji Nchini Tanzania, where she speaks about the foundations that characterize cooperative movements
Overcoming NGOization through Socio-Economic Activities
In the Breaking the Silence on NGOs in Africa, a reflection by the Kenya Organic Intellectuals Network, I reflect on how NGOs reduce grassroots community organizers, such as myself, to data collectors and mobilizers in their community for stipends at the end of the month. This then alienates these workers from the masses and the real work of organizing their community from the oppressive forms that are creating the different issues that they are documenting. It also creates a situation where community members have to be paid stipends to attend community meetings.
Instead, the table banking method provides an alternative way of organizing and community self-funding. Women meet, do their contributions, take loans, then also discuss their issues as a Network or within their community.
Conclusion
Table banking is becoming an invaluable tool in community empowerment, and more so for women participants. It provides them with access to savings, credit, and a supportive social network that helps them overcome economic hardships and build a better future. Although challenges exist, the benefits of table banking in promoting financial independence, community solidarity, and social economic empowerment cannot be overstated. As a grassroots social economic activity, it is a critical step towards reducing poverty and promoting dignified living in the informal economy. By continuing to support and expand such initiatives, we can ensure that more community organizers will have the independence to become their own agency, slowly by slowly in their own communities.
By Njeri Mwangi (Membership and Campaigns Coordinator at MSJC and member of the Kenya Organic Intellectuals Network)
Statement of Solidarity With Our MST Comrades in Defense of Dignity and Social Justice
Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC) unequivocally condemns the violent murders and systemic oppression targeting the Landless Workers’ Movement — the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) in Brazil.
On 10 January, the Olga Benário occupation in Tremembé, São Paulo, was attacked by armed men, who entered the occupation in cars and motorcycles.
They shot indiscriminately at residents, leaving two people dead and six people injured, and among these victims are children and elderly people.
The comrades who have fallen in the struggle are Valdir Nascimento and Gleison Barbosa.
Valdir Nascimento, known as “Valdirzão,” was a prominent figure in the struggle for agroecology and a staunch defender of occupied land. A committed member of MST since 1993, he dedicated his life to fighting illegal land sales and strengthening the peasant movement in the Paraíba Valley.
Gleison Barbosa, known as “Guegue,” was the son of a family living on the occupation. Although he lived in São Paulo, his dedication to the occupation led him to actively contribute to community efforts.
Denis Carvalho remains in an ICU ward after undergoing surgery to remove shrapnel from his head. His condition is critical.
These violent murders and abductions of people who fight for their freedom from oppression and exploitation all over the world, are a resounding rallying call for the working and struggling masses to unite, rise and defend their livelihoods and social justice. The struggle for dignity and social justice transcends borders.
As the Kenyan people continue to fight against the neo-colonial state, land is at the heart of our struggle. We declare our full and unwavering solidarity with the MST and the working people of Brazil. The MST continues to inspire millions by organizing the landless to occupy and defend their land. Their courageous resistance embodies the enduring spirit of hope and collective action in the face of imperialism.
The land belongs to those who work it, and its occupation is a testament to the resilience and determination of the oppressed to defend their dignity and build a just society.
In solidarity, Gacheke Gachihi Coordinator, MSJC. ggacheke@gmail.com ¬+254720318049
The Dhobi Women Network, in partnership with the Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC), convened a pivotal dialogue focusing on the rights and persistent struggles of domestic workers. This event, under the theme “Domestic Work is Work,“ brought together community stakeholders, advocates, and domestic workers to address critical issues within the domestic labor sector. This event took place on October 31, 2024.
The dialogue also marked the official launch of the Dhobi Women Network, a movement dedicated to advancing the rights, dignity, and social well-being of domestic workers in Mathare, Eastleigh, and other informal settlements.
The Dhobi Women Network.
The Dhobi Women Network is a grassroots initiative that seeks to unify domestic workers by providing a platform for solidarity, advocacy, and community-driven action. Founded by women who have lived experience of the challenges of domestic work, the Network operates as a space where domestic workers can connect, share experiences, and collectively address workplace injustices.
The Network works to:
Educate domestic workers about their rights and responsibilities to protect them from exploitation
Advocate for fair labor practices, equitable wages, and dignified working conditions
Mobilize domestic workers to take collective action, including unionization and the development of support systems
Collaborate with other organizations and campaigns to offer legal aid, training, and access to resources
By centering the lived experiences of domestic workers and partnering with stakeholders who champion social justice, the Dhobi Women Network is building a movement that aspires to transform the informal domestic labor sector.
Continuing the Fight for Justice: A Movement’s Launch
The Dhobi Women Network was introduced as a beacon of hope for domestic workers facing entrenched exploitation, unfair wages, and power imbalances. Rooted in the principles of social justice and human rights, the movement seeks to dismantle the systemic barriers that devalue domestic work and create enduring solutions for workers in the most vulnerable sectors.
The launch on October 31 symbolized an unwavering commitment to amplifying the voices of domestic workers, advocating for their rights, and fostering a community of solidarity amid growing economic pressures and workplace injustices.
Unpacking the Struggles of Domestic Workers
During the launch, Balkisa, from Save a Girl Save a Generation, underscored the importance of educating women about their rights and equipping them with practical skills to combat workplace injustices. She reiterated that education and collective power is essential to ensuring domestic workers achieve dignity and fairness in their roles. Save a Girl Save a Generation is an organization that works with the Dhobi Women Network to protect women who face cases of gender-based violence, and they also have a campaign against forced female circumcision.
TheLived Realities of Domestic Workers
The dialogue featured moving testimonies from domestic workers, like Mama Osodo and Mama Wambui, who shared their experiences with unpaid wages, workplace violence, false accusations, and pervasive employer-employee power imbalances. These stories shed light on the structural injustices faced by many workers and reinforced the urgency of building collective action to transform their conditions.
The women have also adopted table banking as a practice to save the little resources they make from their work. Table banking, as a model of social entrepreneurship, has helped foster a sense of financial independence and discipline; it has also provided an accessible and informal platform to save and address urgent and everyday financial needs.
Collaborative Support from Advocacy Groups
Organizations like HESAID and Maisha Safe Girls reaffirmed their commitment to supporting domestic workers. By providing safe spaces and resources for those facing exploitation, these groups align with the Dhobi Women Network’s mission to create an inclusive and resilient support network.
Unionization as a Tool for Rights Advocacy
The dialogue highlighted the critical role of unionization in advancing workers’ rights. Javan Owala, speaking on behalf of the Kamukunji Member of Parliament, emphasized the need for collective organizing to strengthen legal protections for domestic workers. Unionization was framed as a necessary strategy to address the persistent invisibility of domestic workers in formal labor systems.
Legal Empowerment for Domestic Workers
MSJC’s Legal Empowerment Network provided valuable insights into workers’ legal rights and the tools available to them. Key discussions on these topics included the importance of formal contracts or agreements, adherence to minimum wage standards, and creating equitable working conditions.
The Network affirmed its unwavering commitment to ensuring domestic workers in informal settlements have access to legal and community-based remedies. It also noted that their campaigns must continue championing the ratification of the international labor instruments that protect domestic workers, mainly the ILO C189, which aim to protect the rights of domestic workers.
Alternative Justice Systems (AJS): Accessible Solutions for Informal Workers
In recognizing the limitations of formal justice systems, the event explored the role of Alternative Justice Systems (AJS) as culturally relevant and accessible mechanisms for resolving workplace grievances. AJS presents an important complement to formal systems, particularly for domestic workers who face barriers to accessing traditional legal avenues.
RESOLUTIONS: Solidarity for Sustained Change
The launch of the Dhobi Women Network marks a pivotal moment in the fight for domestic workers’ rights. The dialogue and launch concluded with a renewed commitment to sustained advocacy and solidarity, calling upon community members, organizations and policymakers to recognize domestic work as essential labor deserving of dignity, protection, and equity.
By centering the voices of domestic workers and mobilizing collective action, the Network aims to dismantle systemic inequalities, and ensure that justice and human rights are accessible to all workers, particularly those in informal settlements like Eastleigh.
The struggle for justice is far from over, but with the resilience of domestic workers and the growing solidarity within movements like Dhobi Women Network, a more equitable future is within reach.
Report by: Vincent Mahugu (Legal Empowerment Network).
The MSJC Ecological Justice Network in Mathare is growing and growing! Young people are coming together to reclaim their environment after both floods and violent evictions, and this inspiring documentary tells their story as they build together for this purpose.
The youth groups involved set up community parks and safe spaces for kids, while fostering unity among the people of Mathare through activities such as urban farming. This visionary work also allows the youth to work towards food sovereignty, while also earning an income.
The groups involved include Ghetto Farmers, Jungle Green Youth Group, Big Dreams, Team Destiny, Birdland, Yellow Bench, Vision Bearers, Smart Beginners, Twaweza , Excellent, Dhobi Women’s Network Mathare, and others.
Despite the challenges faced, especially those of intimidation and harassment from the local administration and the police, the Network has revived hope among the people that, indeed, a new Mathare where we have dignity is not only possible, but the responsibility of the people.
On October 20, MSJC’s Ecological Justice Network organised a community tree planting event to promote ecological justice, honour victims and survivors of state violence, and in memory of all of those young shujaas martyred by the state during the Occupy protests.
The Occupy memorialisation campaign continues to use different methods to keep the memory of occupy parliament martyrs alive — it is a consistent struggle of memory against forgetting.
This event attracted community members and environmental activists who participated in various activities including tree planting for memory and a reggae music session. Access the community report here:
Wakenya and many friends from all over: the floods may have come in a flash but the work of rebuilding takes time and your ongoing solidarity to Mathare residents is greatly appreciated.
Our work now shifts from crisis response towards helping families re-establish homes and lives. This is made much harder as the government enacted demolitions along and beyond Mathare’s riparian area, rendering thousands of households homeless, without any compensation provided to those affected.
All of the donations you have sent in response to this crisis are for the recovery of our people. To date our Mathare Social Justice Centre paybill has received 2,122,107 KES for Mathare flood victims. We have also received tons of food, clothing, bedding, mattresses, diapers, sanitary towels, cooking equipment and much more.
Our last statement, on May 2, 2024, accounted for 1,758,025 KES from our collective Network of Mathare Justice Centres and 313,170 KES from the phone of a MSJC secretariat member. Since then we have continued to run community kitchens in three locations. These kitchens have been running since April 25th, and at their peak could feed up to 1500 people a day.
With the funds and food donations we still have, we will be continuing the community kitchens, and providing cash transfers to 150 households. We will continue to honour and be accountable to all of those who stood with us and sent whatever they could to support these response efforts. You have really emphasised to us that Ubuntu exists: indeed, we are because you are.
In terms of long-term action, we intend to partner on a public interest litigation case on behalf of the residents of Mathare who suffered doubly from the floods and forced evictions.
We would also like to thank over one hundred individuals and organisations that supported us: we have tried our best to list all of them below, and we apologise for any names we have missed in error.
Thank you for struggling with us, and choosing to defend humanity. We are because you are.
Below and in this letter is a recognition of our supporters:
Today, June 18, many Kenyans came out to protest against the punitive Finance Bill of 2024.
While the right to assembly is guaranteed by the Constitution, the police, under the orders of the state, responded to us as though we are in war.
On the streets were grandmothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, siblings who were there to peacefully demand their right to dignity; their right to not have 16% tax on bread, diapers, sanitary towels and even cancer treatment.
Currently, we estimate that over 200 people are being held in Central Police Station, Kasarani Police Station, Muthaiga Police Station and other unknown locations. At Central Police Station, none of the protestors have been booked for any offence, although the police are still detaining them and preventing lawyers from seeing them. Those detained include Njeri Mwangi, a key member of the MSJC Secretariat.
We demand that the Ruto administration immediately release the illegally detained Kenyans who were exercising their sovereignty fully within Article 37 of the constitution. This is the article that states: “every person has the right, peaceably and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket, and to present petitions to public authorities.”
The grandmothers who left Mathare in the morning to join the protest were coming to let the government know that they are tired of sleeping in the ruins of their houses by the polluted Mathare river; they have been there ever since their homes were violently destroyed by the government to “save” them from future floods.
Collectively, we were all coming to say we are tired of being demumanized every day because Ruto wants to be at the service of IMF and World Bank masters.
The people have come out to exercise their sovereign power directly and have demanded that the Finance Bill 2024 be rejected in its entirety. Though we have been met with the state violence of this criminal government, we will not relent in our fight to defend the dignity and rights of our people.
African movements involved in the Afrikki Network met from the 5th to the 27th of February 2024 in Nairobi. Afrikki is a collective of social movements within Africa and the diaspora, which offers a platform for grassroots people organizations to interact and forge people inspired approaches in tackling local and continental social justice issues.
We want contribute in building Pan-Africanism of a new kind, through international solidarity and promoting popular democracy.
The collective includes various member organizations including: 1. Y’en A Marre of Senegal 2. Filimbi and LUCHA of DRC 3. Balai Citoyen of Burkina Faso 4. Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC) 5. The Tanzania Socialist Forum in Tanzania. 6. Team Gom Sa Bopa in the Gambia. 7. Project South of Atlanta.
Here is the report from the convening. Viva Africa Viva!
The people of Mathare and other informal settlements (such as Mukuru, Kibera, Kayole, Githurai, Kasarani, and all affected areas) strongly condemn the UDA government for the inhumanity and indignity it has accorded the Kenyan people over the past few months.
Under the guise of saving us from nature, this government has destroyed the livelihoods of millions of Kenyans through illegal demolitions in Mathare, Mukuru, Kariobangi, and other informal settlements, without a proper relocation plan or land allocation for victims.
These acts cannot mask the criminal negligence of the UDA government, which had early warnings about the climate crisis, and its failure to act in time has exposed millions of Kenyans to death traps and hopelessness.
While the government extends the budget ceiling for State House and Parliament, hundreds of people are currently held in camps, schools, churches, and community halls that lack basic amenities for daily use. These are facilities with barely, if any, adequate sanitation facilities, and are currently the sites of cholera outbreaks.
We oppose the attempt of the ruling class and the government of Kenya to impose the ecological crisis burden onto the urban poor and the peasants of Kenya. We are already burdened by the weight of an economy that dehumanises us every day.
We expose the criminal negligence of the UDA government and its partners, who are at the service of the IMF and World Bank institutions, since they collectively violate our basic rights as enshrined by Article 43 of the Kenyan Constitution. This is: the right to decent housing, the right to food, the right to the highest attainable standards of healthcare, and the right to clean and accessible water.
The Ecological Justice Network in Mathare honours all the martyrs who have paid a heavy price for the criminal negligence of our government. It is us who have known these martyrs as they have struggled for food, dignity, employment, adequate housing and the right to life for their children. It is still us who find their bodies after the floods, and try and pick up the pieces of their lives in their death. We will not let their demise be in vain!
In memory of Mama Victor and Jacinta Adhiambo, who were our great social justice advocates and human rights defenders, we will continue on their path of demanding dignity and social justice for all.
We know Kenya will one day be liberated from the corrupt and unaccountable regimes of the UDA government, which brought the face of the hustler but is actually a overseer shepherding us to be slaves.
We the people on this eighth day of May 2024 therefore demand:
1. Quality housing for all 2. Compensation for all the martyrs who died during the floods 3. Life with a dignified environment 4. Education for all 5. Land for all the landless.
A government that cannot provide these basic needs has no right to be in power.
We call upon Kenyans to join us for mass action, starting today in Mathare, until we gain our livelihoods and social justice.
