PADEM launches this month (September 2021) a project to improve housing conditions in Kenya for a period of three years, in partnership with the Fondation Abbé Pierre!
Based on its experiences developed in Sri Lanka, Mongolia and thanks to the results of the capitalization initiated by the Fondation Abbé Pierre, PADEM is committed with two local partner organizations to support people in the slums of Kibera and Mathare, located in the capital Nairobi, as well as and in the rural area of Busia County.
PADEM has collaboration experience since 2007 with KGSA (Kibera Girls Soccer Academy) in the Kibera slum, and with LEC (Legacy Education Center) in the Mathare slum, for developing education for the poorest and for fighting against gender discrimination. These two partner associations were recently supported by PADEM as part of the Abbé Pierre Foundation’s Covid-19 emergency funds.
Like most PADEM partners, they are specialised in fundamental rights issues. Aware of the multiple challenges related to the issue of poor housing, all the teams are very enthusiastic about this new type of action in support of marginalized population in Kenya.
As part of this project, a PADEM coordination office in Kenya will be set up to monitor and support partners as close as possible. A project coordinator and a technical coordinator will thus provide partners with enhanced support.
A detailed analysis of the context and the type of actions to be undertaken enabled us to plan global actions for the problems related to housing: in particular the increase in safety and hygiene, child protection, combating gender discrimination and building financial capacity. The main challenge for the implementation of this pilot project will be to succeed in facilitating exchanges between stakeholders on land issues and to find a model for larger-scale habitat improvement that will benefit to the poorest.
