Makina, Kenya

It all started here for We See You. What seemed to be a simple picture of a small clinic located in a place called Kibera in Kenya, sparked something within us. An idea that we could all be doing something more to make our world a better place- that together we can make a difference for this one small community a half a world away.

We spent one afternoon sitting at the kitchen table in Dr. Pammla Petrucka’s home, listening to the stories she had of the worst place that she has been, and slowly realized that this was the perfect place to start. The clinic that she had visited in Kibera was in a neighbourhood called Makina, where nearly 300,000 people live in an area the size of Taylor Field at Mosaic Stadium. This population of people, 48% of whom are infected with HIV/ AIDS, are supported by the clinic and their one part time Doctor and one full time nurse.

About Makina

With such a large group of people in such a small space, it doesn’t take long to imagine the issues that surround one of the largest slums in Africa. With massive poverty and severe health problems such as HIV/ AIDS, malaria and other maladies that occur from malnutrition and clean living conditions, the people of Makina lack access to medical care and attention that we in the western world would consider adequate.

Nearly one half of the Makina women have contracted the HIV virus, creating a social epidemic that has become a vicious cycle of infection and leaving thousands of children orphaned and left to fend for themselves.
Learn more about Makina, Kenya.

How WSY Met a Specific Need

The needs in Makina are so great that as a first project it was difficult to set our sights on one specific need. As with all of our projects, we rely on the creativity of our partners and the social networks that they have built to drive the collection of contents for the container, and in the case of our container to Makina what we received from groups and individuals was nothing short of awe inspiring.

We saw students from Scott Collegiate in Regina and Nutana Collegiate in Saskatoon develop projects that would improve the overall aesthetics of the clinic itself. The students created a new wooden sign for the outside of the clinic that could also act as a community message board as well as create beautiful star blanket paintings that now hang on the walls of the clinic to symbolize hope and caring for one another.

There are many in the community whose only barrier to attend school and receive a proper education is a pencil. Members of Bedford Road Collegiate Institute in Saskatoon chose to tackle the issue of education for Makina’s youth through a simple idea of creating a pencil drive within their school. The support from fellow students for this project was incredible, and within two weeks of starting the drive over 5,000 pencils was collected. Because of the group’s efforts, children that want to attend school in Makina now can.

In Makina, a bicycle is more than a mode of transportation- it is a way to earn a living. We See You reached out to the City of Regina, and through that connection we received 12 bicycles that had been recovered by the city police as stolen or discarded. SaskTel employees volunteered to repair and restore these bikes, and they were shipped to Makina to be used by local community members for delivery and messenger services.

There were many others who contributed to the success of our initial We See You container. To read more of their stories, visit our news archives.
Click on the photo below to take a look at the Makina photo album and videos.
You can also learn about We See You's visit to Kibera in 2009 in Sheenah's Blog.

Overview

Community: Makina is a neighborhood located in Kibera, Kenya, which is the second largest slum in Africa and the third largest slum in the world.

Population: The population of Kibera is approximately 1.2 Million people, of which more than 100,000 are orphaned children.

Average income: The average income of a Kibera resident is less than 1 US dollar a day.

Crisis: Poverty, health, clean water, and the sanitary conditions in Kibera are among the top concerns.

Overview

Community: Makina is a neighborhood located in Kibera, Kenya, which is the second largest slum in Africa and the third largest slum in the world.

Population: The population of Kibera is approximately 1.2 Million people, of which more than 100,000 are orphaned children.

Average income: The average income of a Kibera resident is less than 1 US dollar a day.

Crisis: Poverty, health, clean water, and the sanitary conditions in Kibera are among the top concerns.