It took the Kibera Youth Reform Group just 105 days from the time they started clearing a site that was waist-deep in garbage to the first harvest of vegetables from a lush green garden that is the first of its kind in Africa’s largest slum. The Kibera Youth Reform Organic Garden, which now feeds 30 families and also earns income, has been such a miracle that many other groups receiving donor funding tried to bask in its success.

The credit, however, belongs to an unlikely group – former criminals whose lives were shattered by Kenya’s post-election violence, and wanted to start a new way of life. In April 2008, Claire Niala, a doctor who began working with the group after the election, came to visit her friend Su Kahumbu, who runs an organic farming company named Green Dreams Ltd. Claire said that the group’s 70 young men and women wanted to turn a garbage dump in Kandimiru, one of Kibera’s villages, into a farm where they would grow crops for themselves as well as for sale. But they needed some technical help, and that was where Su, who actively promotes organic farming in Kenya, came into the picture.

Green Dreams, which Su started on 10 acres in Tigoni in 2000, became Kenya’s first locally-certified organic farm in 2004, producing fresh vegetables, fruit, dairy and poultry products. Green Dreams shares knowledge about organic farming with small-scale rural farmers, and the proposed organic farm seemed a great opportunity. Su agreed to help with co-ordination and planning and provide technical advice.

The young people, who had previously only known a life of crime, began with the massive job of clearing all the garbage off the land. It is a tiny plot, 70 by 15 metres, bordering the railway line, but it was three metres deep in garbage dumped by nearby residents. The garbage was compacted and tied down under tarpaulins on one side of the plot.

The group members ploughed and prepared the land, covering the plastic waste with shade net and planting pumpkins to stabilize the compacted waste as well as produce a food product. Drip irrigation offered the most cost-effective and conserving way to water the crops, so the young people learned the basics of plumbing and laid out the drip irrigation systems themselves. Dominic Wanjihja, who taught them how to set up drip irrigation, also designed an easy planting tool, a hollow plastic pipe with a recycled yoghurt pot tied to the top and a stick tied to the bottom. The stick is jabbed into the ground to make a hole and several seeds from the pot are dropped down the pipe, allowing planting without stooping.

Soil testing showed that there were slightly elevated levels of heavy metal on some parts of the farm. Thus, as well as deciding to make all the farming organic so as not to increase toxin levels, they planted sunflowers to deal with slightly-elevated levels of heavy metals in some parts of the farm. Sunflowers have a unique ability to extract zinc and heavy metals from the soil efficiently – but that means the seeds can’t be eaten and the leaves cannot be composted. The flowers and leaves have to be burned. However, the sunflowers beautify the farm, known as a “shamba”.

Traditional leafy vegetables like Kunde are planted alongside better known species like spinach to protect local diets and diversity of crops. Crops include cabbages, tomatoes, kale, spinach, and pumpkin. The farm uses biopesticides and no conventional fertilizers; they separate and compost their own organic wastes to produce the nutrients. They learned about vermiculture, which means farming earthworms to produce organic liquid fertilizer. The worm farm is a half barrel filled to the brim with material and worms. The worms digest all the household and crop waste and every month the team pours water on top of the entire tank and catches what comes out. The ‘casts’ produced by the worms dissolve into a nutritious brown liquid called ‘worm tea’. Now group members hope to teach vermiculture to other groups to help with their cash flow.

Six weeks after planting, on July 28, they began harvesting crops. There was enough for 30 families and the group is selling the extra crops to pay for the irrigation water and the next round of seeds. It takes 50 days from seed to harvest for spinach in Kenya and farming can continue year round, thanks to the irrigation system.

The water for the drip irrigation is paid for by selling clean water by the 20-litre jerrycan to members of the community from a water tank that is owned by the group. Clean water is a huge problem in Kibera, and at one point, some men upstream cut off the water to the rest of the community. The reform group went over and made sure the water control value was permanently open, making community residents so happy that they gave all kinds of in-kind donations for building the community centre.

The sprawling, unregulated Kibera slum originated during World War I, when the land was a temporary residence to the Nubian (Sudanese) soldiers from the King’s African Rifles. The name ‘Kibera’ comes from the Nubian word ‘kibra’, meaning forest or jungle. But while Kibera has many problems - basic water supplies, sanitation, solid waste management, power problems, poor roads and high population densities – the garden shows that its residents have solutions and the will to make them a reality. “The problems [in the slums] might be big but we also have the solutions,” says Eric Agoro Simba, a youth group co-ordinator. “What these people need is a push, not pity.” Dr. Niala agrees. “They [slum dwellers] need empowerment more,” she told IRIN News. Given that the post-election violence seriously disrupted farming in Kenya’s Rift Valley, the group’s new farming skills are an asset to Kibera.

This story was prepared from information on Su Kahumbu’s Green Dreams blog, and the Baraza Wildlife Direct web maintained by her sister Paula Kahumbu. Thanks to Su for permission to tell the story here and to use the pictures from the blogs. For more stories about the garden, see Kibera: From rubbish dump to cabbage patch, 3 Sept. 2008, IRIN News; Organic farm blossoms in Kenya’s largest slum, Xan Rice, The Guardian, Sept. 20 2008 (also published in The Food Times);  Youth Initiative for Community Development; and From Piles of Trash Kibera’s Organic Farms Relieve Hunger, Ching Li Chan, Sept. 5, 2008, Global Envision.

UPDATE: Hopebuilding is delighted that the story of the Kibera youth reform group’s garden will appear in a French-language textbook entitled Good News 3e Livre de l’élève, being published byEditions Belin, Paris, France.

For other stories about Kibera, see:

Solar water disinfection saves lives, money in largest Kenyan slum

Waste-burning community cooker solves many problems in Kenyan slum

Sack gardens bring nutrition, revenue to Kenyan slum