Raw sewage flows into many of Mukuru kwa Reuben’s alleys
every day, and so this godforsaken urban sprawl cannot hide the pestilential
problem of the city’s garbage and sewage management.
But it is a small school here, started 12 years ago, that
could be the emblem of all that is wrong with Nairobi’s public health
management.
Tina’s Education Centre, located in the middle of the slum,
is bearing the brunt of decades of poor waste disposal, and whichever way you
turn inside the small compound you are confronted with the reality that this
could be Nairobi’s most dangerous school.
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| Raw sewage has flooded the playground and some classrooms for two years now, putting the health of the 140 pupils and 12 teachers here at risk. |
A nauseating pungent smell hangs in the air, the compound is
flooded with sewer water, and pools of raw sewage rest calmly, but dangerously,
inside classrooms and the staffroom.
About 140 pupils study here every day, dancing with fate
every time they walk through the gate in the morning.
“This school has literally gone down the drain and nobody
seems to care,” says Mr Oscar Ogaye, the administrator. “I constantly try to
call about blocked sewers and broken water pipes but get no response.”
Their woes began last year, when a developer decided to put
up houses on a sewer line that empties the slum’s effluent into a nearby river.
“There is very little that we can do,” says Ms Christine
Wako, a teacher at the institution.
“Although the school’s director has tried to redirect sewage,
he cannot do it alone.”
