Women's Voices - Kenya

The women used old, borrowed, Betamax cameras. For four days they learned scripting, shooting, and editing and discussed how they could include their entire community by showing them rough-cuts and asking for contributions to the story and the narratives.

The two Kenyan groups produced three videos, one each and one describing the process.

The videos made it clear that tenure insecurity is Kenyan women's overwhelming concern. A secondary concern is the infrastructure they live with and the health-related risks. The videos focused on issues like HIV/AIDS, the number of orphans, and the plight of elderly grandparents, in addition to the scarcity of men within their communities (who are adversely affected by alcohol, drugs, and crime). The women also spoke of their dreams, their daily savings club, their community fund derived from cleaning and charging for the few available latrines, and their efforts to gain security.

Women, Technology.

Although it is women more than men who have to balance the complexities of surviving in extreme poverty, women are excluded from the discussion because they are often illiterate and lacking in confidence and mobility. Despite being settled for many years, both areas of Kenya in which these women live are threatened by forced evictions and arson by frustrated landowners anxious to claim land. Their poorly constructed shelters are made of mud, cardboard and rusting iron sheets densely packed along twisting narrow lanes, which serve as open drains. Water, sanitation, drainage and electricity are scarce. Violent crime, illegal drugs and alcohol, HIV/AIDS, and unemployment seriously afflict these areas.

The women in these groups are mostly over 60. They are petty traders selling a few vegetables or paper bags, most of them single and responsible for families, or sometimes several families of grandchildren.

The groups organised and hosted a premiere of their videos that was held in the British Council auditorium in Nairobi. The invited audience included government ministers, the director of housing, donors, NGOs, academic and women's groups from other parts of Kenya. The videos were transferred to CDs and have been shown around the world with the women's consent, including Zimbabwe, USA (World Bank) and Britain (Department for International Development, or DFID, engineers' conference).

The programme, arguably, has enabled them to develop clear ideas about what they need and see the resolution of their tenure difficulties as something they could resolve and that would be the basis for further development in terms of jobs, skills training, legal rights, and HIV/AIDS services. For instance, both groups want a community resource centre managed by them that can offer tenure and HIV information and skills training.