I come from a slum called Kibera, situated in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, home to one million people. The mainstream media in Kenya portray us badly –only focusing on the negative aspects of the slum.
The media also makes things up, just to make us look bad. For example, if some of the houses caught fire due to an electrical fault, they would report it as a fire caused by rioting.
This has created a stigma for those of us living there. When people hear that you come from Kibera, you will immediately be taken for an uneducated criminal.
When people hear that you come from Kibera, you will immediately be taken for an uneducated criminal.
For the next two weeks I’ll be attending a blogger training course in Tanzania to help me learn how to use blogs to provide more balanced reporting on Kibera from an insider’s point of view.
Yesterday was my second day in this training. We had three very exciting presentations from experienced bloggers. The one that touched me most was from a young Danish lady called Solana-who works for Global Voices-a community of more than 300 bloggers and translators around the world who work together on blogs and citizen media everywhere, with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media.
With the skills I get from here, I am going to continue putting forward another story-far from everything that happens in the slums is bad and majority of the people living there are poor, but honest people with honest lives.
There should be no difference between a person living in an upper class area and a slum!
