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:
Mathare Social Justice Centre
