“Most of my reliable customers if not all, are underage children, and majority of them are school drop-outs from Mathare slums and also from the surrounding hoods like Kariobangi, Dandora and Korogocho. Every day, they turn up in the evenings because they spend the better part of the mornings in different streets or manually digging into the dumpsites located in the corners of the slums. The activities involved in collecting the scrap seems complex especially separating their collections, composed mostly of copper, aluminum iron,” says Mr. Francis who owns and operates a scrap shop in Mathare North. It’s all about survival for the fittest and the children in the slums have to not only work, but work hard as the only basic means of earning a living and to sustain their daily lives as they live to tell the tale of endurance in the slums. To some of them, having given up in education mostly due to poverty, working seems more important and the only option. Hence, they turn to collection of scrap as a full-time engagement to support themselves. The dumpsites that are scattered in every twist and turn of the slums are often filled with a variety of metals mostly tossed by garbage collectors because they are ignorant of the recycling process to conserve the metals. The street children then take advantage to dig into the dumpsites and collect the metals as a means of earning their daily bread. Daily, the children are armed with storage sacks and a magnet for substantiating the metals by value and separating the ferrous metals from the nonferrous metals before linking up with their respective agents.
The rhythmic chirping of birds early in the morning seems to entertain the large numbers of formal school going children along the dusty streets, mixed with the untidy street kids who have also woken up from their respective caves and hide outs. All of them aligned along the same route but with different destinations, age mates but with different and distinct life experiences. It seems this is nature’s informal way of separating wheat from chaff. Being a victim of circumstances sometimes subjects one to the abnormalities of life.
The business of collecting, recycling and selling scrap metal is beneficial as an income generating activity and also as measure of promoting a green community through the consistent and continuous use of environmentally friendly material. The continuous mining of metal is reduced when the amount metal being recycled is increased. This business of selling scrap is mostly carried out by boys although a few cases are always reported of girls also participating in the collection process. Children involved are usually aged between 8-17years with reported cases of kids who are younger than 8years, mostly orphans, some with single parents while others have sick parents whose health makes them vulnerable to other health related problems. Therefore, they have no option working to fend for their families and the collection and sell of scrap seems a perfect alternative to most of them to rise above the poverty line. In the slums, these teenagers normally stay in situations that are catastrophic and in families that are characterized by continuous discrimination and exclusion, violence and emotional abuse. Such kind of life explains the transition into the adoption of the slum social evils like stealing.
“We sell scrap at a cost of sh. 18 on the lower side but you can plead with him and he gives you sh. 20. Although the money is never sufficient, at least it can support us. So we strive to make sure that we such for more metals because the more we bring out the more we earn, depending on the number of kilograms that we submit at the closure of business. We have been selling metal for long, its hard roaming around in search of the scrap and sometimes he might reject because he needs the best. It’s never guaranteed that all the supplies will be accepted and so we have no assurance of earning some cash to cater for our daily needs,” claims Jaguar, a 12year old orphan from Mathare slums who survives just by selling scrap metal. Jaguar speaks while holding his 10year old younger brother. They work and walk together in search and collection of scrap in the dumpsites and around the slums. The duo dropped out of school after the demise of their parents and so they stay with a relative who only provides accommodation for them. This makes them even more vulnerable to the communal problems in the slums and a drawback towards achieving their dreams and aspirations. According to the World Vision (a Christian international NGO, both relief and development oriented), through the empowerment of children, they have that potential of transforming themselves considerably. The process of equipping them with the right skills is a perfect directive in streamlining their lives thus their community participation becomes meaningful as their competence rises.
The weird picture of street kids looks scaring with some as young as four years old. Rose is a mother of two kids and the homeless trio is all loaded with sacks tracing their way through the streets of Kariobangi in search of scrap metal. “My husband just woke up one Monday morning and left for work. I never saw him back since then, that was five years ago. He left me with these two angels and I was jobless with no source of income. I had to think big and find a sustainable way of taking care of my two kids. Being illiterate, a professional job was unimaginable and so I had to figure out some other means of self employment as long as I could afford my kids daily bread and other necessities of life. I moved around on a daily basis keeping my hope alive but with time I realized my fate was already sealed aeons ago and the only appropriate means of existence was to soldier on. I opted for this scrap collecting job since then,” says Rose while staring down with a humble face.