Map Kibera

The Map Kibera family is continually growing. The groups and activities – Mapping, Voice of Kibera, Kibera News Network – we are involved with multiply and evolve in exciting and unexpected ways. Each group has its own history and set of current activities. Everyone involved has a unique talents, skills and interests, which contribute to the success of the Map Kibera programme.

These projects come together intuitively and almost seamlessly online. One challenge that arises however is that the groups and individuals do not necessarily collaborate offline (very often).

On August 30th, 2010 the Map Kibera family (about 40 people in total) came together for the first time at the NaiLab. The main objective of the day was for everyone to get to know each other and the work that they’ve been doing. A second objective was to explore how we could collaborate and work more closely offline. Most importantly we wanted to recognize the achievements and challenges of each group so far and identify goals for the future.

The Map Kibera family!

A summary of the achievements of all 3 groups

• Networking and meeting new people in Kibera, Kenya and around the world
• Recognition of our work within the community and globally
• Leading the way in terms of information sharing in Kenya
• Positive learning experiences within the group(s)
• Learning more about the people and geography of Kibera
• Gaining new skills (e.g. computer skills, camera handling, video editing, GIS including OpenStreetMap, etc.)

And the challenges

• Hostility and suspicion from some community members which sometimes leads to demands for payment in exchange for information
• Difficulty in raising awareness about the different websites within the community
• Limited financial resources result in the need to balance volunteering for the group with the need to make a living
• Lack of professional skills
• Technical glitches related to the different web-based software we use
• Lack of equipment and other resources

Group and personal goals:

• To work together to make one strong team
• To share information and helping the community in Kibera
• To create jobs and train others
• To become a better public speaker
• To gain personal, professional skills
• To improve technical skills
• To become professional media group(s) handling 1st hand information from Kibera

We are committed to adding to the list of achievements, addressing the challenges and, over time, meeting the personal and group goals. Everyone is looking forward to the collaboration and work online and (more importantly) offline!

A special thanks to Rose Nyawira who joined us from Community Clean Services (CCS) – we look forward to working with her again in the near future!

Rose facilitating a team building exercise

The 2009 Kenyan census puts Kibera’s population at 170,070, very far from the usual 1 million plus figure thrown around. The scale of the change has rightly shocked people.

When we first prepared to come to Kibera last year, we looked for a source for this one million number. It was widely quoted in all the major media and even the UN, but never with a source, and we found this very suspicious. With caution, we always qualified the population number in writing and presentations with a question mark or the clause “widely quoted number”. With a little more investigation, we found some quality work on this question. The Map Kibera Project (different project, similar in spirit, unintentional namespace clash) undertook a door to door survey in Kianda village, and based on the population density there, extrapolated to all of Kibera for a figure of 235000-270000. The KeyObs RESPOND project derived an estimate of the number of built structures in Kibera from satellite imagery, and then conducted a sample to estimate population per structure, and came up with a number in the range from 199,959 to 205,108. Both efforts clearly published their methodology and seemed like reasonable efforts.

infographic by Jennifer Baranoff

Despite this, when Jill Biden visited Kibera in June, the White House reported the number jumping to 1.5 million! What motivations are there inflating Kibera’s population numbers? The cynical claim is that NGOs and CBOs use the 1 million number to benefit themselves. I don’t see much evidence that people are getting rich from NGOs, but then there’s not much evidence at all of how much money has flowed through Kibera ineffectively. Certainly Kibera has had more attention than other places equally deserving of help, and of course it is the place we started in Kenya. Kenyan’s understandably want to change the perception of informal areas. The large number of retweets I think reflects the desire of well-off Kenyans to put Kibera behind them. Despite the 1 million number falling, Kibera is still a place underserved by government, and one of many informal settlements in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya. The truth is that Kibera is still there.

In our work, somehow Kibera never felt like “1 million”, and but much closer to the MKP and KeyObs number. We had been talking about replicating the KeyObs work with satellite imagery, and also counting daily out and in flux as Kiberians going to work in the industrial area and surrounding estates.

We’re glad to see that light has finally fallen on Kibera’s population in a big way. Certainly a revision is needed. But we’re concerned with the way these new numbers from the Kenyan Census are seized on without question. The number 170,000 is at least on the same scale as previous counts, but it is relatively lower. There are no doubt issues with doing any sort of census anywhere, but especially in a place like Kibera. Definitely the Kenyan census was undertaken professionally, but part of that professional work would be openly discussing methodology and difficulties encountered. Collecting data in an informal settlement is challenging … what special measures were taken by the Kenyan census in Kibera?

The truth is that we still don’t know how many people live in Kibera. It’s a different number today than yesterday. The definition of “living” in Kibera varies, it’s quite a transient place. Whether it’s 170000 or 1.5 million, the truth of that number is intertwined with the understanding of where it’s coming from. And questioning authority in Kenya doesn’t come easy. One chink in the armor is exploited to cast doubt on the entire enterprise. Authority means knowing all.

We’ve come to Kibera fully admitting we don’t know everything. Not only is OpenStreetMap always wrong, every map is always wrong, a representation of a reality which always changes. When we think about how the map and technology will be used in Kibera, we fully admit we don’t have answers but are ready to engage with everyone to perhaps discuss the questions. Understanding that precision and authority is relative, that we don’t understand everything, and understanding the motivations and methodology of how data is collected … all is vitally important in open data, in addition to the “precise” number or position.

… and only now noticing Brian Ekdale’s excellent analysis.