Waste Management - Workshop

Last Thursday's workshop was about waste management/WM/ in Kibera in Kenya, one of the largest informal settlements in sub-Saharan Africa. The organization of the workshop was sequenced on the following issues offering idea emergence from the whole class.

• Improving sanitation and liquid waste management
• Solid WM
• Institutions for WM
• Community Mobilization

After the whole class forwarded ideas on the issues, groups were formed to discuss for more time on one of them. I was in the group on dealing with Community Participation.

Mobilizing the local community needs awareness creation to help them understand that the problem is against the healthy livelihood of their families. The stakeholders like the local authorities, NGOs or religious/cultural elites can motivate the community to take the issue seriously. Organizing trainings for awareness dissemination and skill transfer, especially for youngsters at school can be beneficial.

The sustainability of the community mobilization could be further strengthened by setting a leadership system that spans different ages, social and economic backgrounds. In my view, mothers are ideal leaders in developing countries, for community-based issues.

The other important factor, if possible, in encouraging the locals is making sure that they could benefit economically. Recycling centers can be useful for this purposes.

The workshop gave us the opportunity to consider many issues regarding the waste management in slums like Kibera, where no system is established for handling waste.