Football in Kibera

On Saturday morning Dave and I jumped on the #8 matatu to Kibera (a Nairobi slum of ~3/4 of a million people - purportedly the largest in Africa). We were going to administer a sexual health survey to adolescent boys to help out a local NGO called Binti Pamoja (“Daughters United”). The NGO was started by two American women a few years ago to provide mental and emotional health outlets for young women of Kibera through art, theatre, journalism and group discussion. It also provides necessary reproductive health and family planning aid. Completely Kenyan-run, it depends on outside volunteers to chip in when needed. One of the founders wanted to find out how the dating pool of these girls (i.e. the boys) felt about sex, condom use, HIV/AIDS, gender dynamics, etc. to help inform the health programming for the girls. Being that she is in London at the moment, I thought our involvement would be an easy way to help out the NGO and see Kibera.

The boys were lovely. A few teenage antics here and there, but for the most part they were interested in participating. Or maybe their interest was only in the Fantas we were giving out after each completed the survey. Either way, it was a great excuse to take part in Carolina for Kibera’s football day. (CFK is a University of North Carolina initiative that, despite a tiny budget of $70K/year, has a big presence in Kibera and partners with many other NGOs there.) The survey had been scheduled for this day to tap the boys’ football teams for respondents. Unfortunately, we only had 72 sodas to give out as treats and so could only fairly administer that many surveys without creating an I-want-a-Fanta-he-got-a-Fanta problem. The additional benefit of being in Kibera for CFK’s football day was that we were able to see all the open mic, theatre, and singing acts the kids put on for each other. It was a great introduction to the warm and gentle Kenyan culture from kids who have few possessions but a lot of heart.