Pandipieri shanty town

(This comes from a site I found today ... this is where we are going !)

If you look at an urban map of Kisumu, a town in Western Kenya not far from Lake Victoria, you will notice a neat little border that marks its outskirts. Around it you will see a blur of scattered spots. "This is how the shanty-towns are portrayed", explains Father Hans Burgman. "The city has 60,000 inhabitants. The shanty-towns, which cram in more than 300,000 people, do not even appear on the map". 

(This explains why I can't find Pandipieri on any maps I have, nor on any Google maps ...)

Established during the colonial period, when a gate closed off the town of Kisumu, the shanty-towns are now the place where the majority of people live. Pandipieri is the name of one of the two largest shanty-towns and, as odd as it may sound, its Luo translation literally means 'hide your butt'. "The shanty-towns historically had no services, including latrines" continues Father Hans,  "so when people had to go to the toilet, they only had one choice".   Entrenched poverty and a lack of basic services are what prompted Father Hans, a Mill Hill missionary originally from Holland, to settle here more that twenty years ago. 

"At the time, the Catholic church was very rural. It had not yet come to terms with the phenomenon of swelling shanty-towns in the growing urban areas. I was given the task to explore new forms of doing missionary work in this changed context".  So in 1977 this young Dutch missionary, assisted by a handful of community members, established a "new form of Urban Apostolate", which is now known as the Pandipieri Catholic Center, a community-based, urban, and integrated development program. The core philosophy of the Center is based on three principles:-

First, solutions to existing problems must come from within the community; they should not be imported from outside. 

Secondly, if you want to be part of a solution, you must be part of the community. 

And thirdly, resources used must also come from within the community. 

We are, I understand, going to be building the carpentry workshop as part of an off-shoot to the Missions main programmes; but we will certainly fulfill the principle of 'if you want to be part of the solution, you must be part of the community'.   We will be living in the community, and working with members of the community, and hopefully, getting to know the people there ... 

Read more by clicking the link below ... 

http://www.hopeforafricanchildren.org/New/Country%20Programs/kenya_orgs_pandipieri.html