Hundreds of volunteers from Dagoretti and around Nairobi descended on Riruta to see the culmination of a month-long campaign to educate the residents of Dagoretti on the role communities have in ensuring clean and safe neighborhoods. The volunteers cleaned up the streets and unblocked drainages along Kinyanjui Road and Wanye Road picking up over 30 tons of waste. This event was headlined by children from Satellite Primary, Kinyanjui Primary, St. Clement Primary and Durarwa Primary Schools, who participated in a kids sanitation clinic that was held after the cleanup at Kinyanjui Technical.
At the clinic, kids were taken through a hand washing exercise, attended a mini sanitation clinic conducted by Rebecca, a community mobilizer, taken through a modelling class, conducted by international model, Debbie Oyugi, who is also the Founder and CEO of Debbie Oyugi Kids modelling agency and also participated in a football tournament which was won by Riruta Satellite Primary after defeating St. Clement Primary 2 nil in the final.
Over 30 Clean Up Kenya kids ambassadors from the Debbie Oyugi Kids agency also attended the event stealing the show with a ‘runway modelling’ show, and demonstrating to other kids how to organize and plan for effective cleanup events. We have worked with these kids since 2015 and some of them have represented Kenya internationally at kids pageants.
At the event, Betterman Simidi, Clean Up Kenya Founder and CEO and Martin Muriithi, Clean Up Kenya Country Director, awarded Mr. Stanley Didi, the Clean Up Kenya Hall of Fame award. This is an award given to individuals who are making great strides in involving communities in waste management solutions and Stanley becomes the eighth recipient of the award since it began in 2016.
This event was also graced by Mr. Edward Musuni, Riruta Ward Administrator, Mr. Shieni Koiyet, from National Environmental Management Authority, Clean Up Kenya Country Director, Mr. Martin Muriithi, among others. Dozens of organizations were represented including UN Environment, University of Nairobi, Medical Missions Africa, and several local organizations among others. This campaign has been made possible with the sponsorship from Packaging Industries Limited and is a pilot for a national campaign set to be unveiled shortly.
ABOUT CLEAN UP KENYA
Clean Up Kenya was established in 2015 to advocate for and promote sustainable public sanitation in Kenya. Since then we have become the de-facto national public sanitation advocacy brand. We are also experts in community mobilizing for cleanups. We have done numerous cleanups over the years, some of which have been attended by over 1000 volunteers on singular sites. These cleanups are meant to increase visibility on the problem of waste and it is therefore common to see our volunteers in bibs with one message, ‘Clean Up Kenya’. At the core of our work is honest and actual engagement in communities – not PR events. We also run advocacy campaigns holding duty bodies, consumer brands, green-washing NGOs, and other stakeholders to account for unsustainable public sanitation in Kenya and the global South. We receive no funding for our work but collaborate with others on projects.
