Water/sanitation
We take the availability of clean water for granted. Just turn the faucet and you have instant access to water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and bathing. In the Nairobi slums, however, things are much different.

At present, 52 percent of Kenya's 30 million citizens lack access to adequate sanitation -- this according to 2006 figures from the United Nations Children's Fund. In Nairobi, city water is piped into the slum areas, but it travels through pipes that are old, broken, leaking, and laid in very shallow trenches, where surface water (and sewage) runs over them and seeps into the pipes. The water isn’t safe to drink even if you live in an area of the city where it’s piped directly into your home, and that’s certainly not the case in the slums.
In most cases, the water is piped into a central courtyard area of a slum, where people have to collect it in containers and carry it back to their shacks. Many times they also must pay the people who “own” the standpipe for the water.

Unfortunately, conditions are so crowded and unsanitary that there is no way to collect rainwater for use. The rivers are also polluted with trash and sewage, although some people do use river water when there’s nothing else available.

Sanitation facilities are another problem.  Some surveys suggest that 94% of the inhabitants of the slums do not have access to adequate sanitation. Significant proportions of the total population have no way to shower or bathe, either, and in most areas drainage is inadequate. Traditional pit latrines are the only disposal system available, and many slum residents have no facility near their homes. There are often up to 200 persons per pit latrine. Many people are forced to relieve themselves in plastic bags, known as “flying toilets,” which they then toss out into the alleys or onto the roofs of shacks further down the hill.

Hope Partnership seeks to address these crushing problems on a community level. Hope is currently working with the Madoya community in the Mathare Valley to build a toilet and shower facility that residents can use for a small fee, which will be used for upkeep of the facility. A standpipe is also in the plans, so people can take showers in the bathrooms and get clean water there, too. The building will also feature a church meeting room on the second floor! The community members are paying a part of the expense of building the facility so that they will feel a sense of ownership in the project. The rest will be underwritten by a partner church in the U.S.

Similar projects are planned and ongoing in other communities, and are available for sponsorship. The cost for providing clean water through pipes and a tank in a neighborhood is approximately $4,000; a bore hole or well with a pump and tank is about $10,000. It costs about $3,000 to drain stagnant water from a neighborhood to decrease the likelihood of malaria. New sewage pipes to take waste from a neighborhood to existing lines run about $1,500. A garbage incinerator for trash disposal is $12,500.