The History of Mathare

How Mathare Began

Research by Helen G.B (1980) indicates that before the 1950s, the Mathare valley was predominantly owned by Asians who used to extract stones for building. It was later allocated to the carrier corps who had previously been settled in today’s Kariokor market.

In the late 1950s, Mathare was dominated by “mau mau” freedom fighters who hid weapons and conducted oath ceremonies there. There were only a few authorized houses in the area due to a lack of sanitation and waste disposa; services. After independence, many people were left landless and without shelter – most of them came to Nairobi to look for employment. Unfortunately, there were no readily available jobs. This forced some to return home, while those who had no shelter and no land settled in the Mathare Valley, which was both owned by the government and underutilized. They erected low-cost shanties for shelter as many continued looking for employment. Informal labour opportunities were common, as construction sites began to spread across Mathare. Some started brewing commercial changaa and busaa (illicit brews). Others started small food kiosks, green grocers and hawking. Another group which had inhabited the area since independence were youth who migrated from rural areas to Nairobi in search of employment. They were frustrated by the lack of employment opportunities and could not afford to pay for more expensive housing in other estates, so they settled in slums where affordable housing was readily available. Those who never returned to rural areas started small businesses in the slums, while others engaged in illegal brewing and the sale of illicit brews and bhang. As is often the case in impoverished areas, others took up robbery with violence, and others took up prostitution.

Mathare Today

The Mathare Valley is located in the Eastlands of Nairobi, Kenya. It’s the oldest and second largest urban slum in Kenya after Kibera.

Mathare is over-populated. It covers 157 hectares starting from Pangani, down to Gitathuru river. Pangani borders the west side of Mathare, and a police station sits at its northernmost point. Juja Road, a major road in Nairobi’s Eastlands, is what separates Mathare from Eastleigh, another informal settlement south of Mathare. On the east side, Mathare borders Huruma. Mathare is the agglomeration of 13 slum villages.

Like other Nairobi slums, Mathare grew as a result of massive rural to urban migration. Mathare has a population density of 1,000+ residents per hectare (approximately 2.5 acres or 0.0039mi²). For comparison, Manhattan has a residential density of 70,000 residents per square mile or 270 people per hectare. It is, however, important to note that almost all Manhattan residents live in buildings between four and 30 stories, whereas Mathare consists primarily of single-storey structures.

The unplanned nature of the structures and lack of overall planning have created significant challenges for the community. The haphazard arrangement of structures, the lack of public infrastructure investment, and the lack of public services has resulted in many structures disconnected from power, water, and even roads. This lack of connectivity itself hinders truck access, waste removal, fire protection, police protection, and access to other essential services. While the high structure density could explain why infrastructure couldn’t be laid everywhere, density alone could not justify the lack of any infrastructure.

Issues abound related to the slum’s physical infrastructure, directly impacting the health and safety of residents. The city government had not provided even the most basic of services. It had not provided basic infrastructure or services, and streetlights, sewerage, water reticulation, electricity, and garbage pickup were non-existent in Mathare.

Without street lighting, it was unsafe to go outside after dark. Public utilities were also practically non-existent. Mathare had no toilets, and the river served as the slum’s sewerage system. Water was sold by vendors at comparably high prices, resulting in residents consuming less water than they should. Residents did their cleaning in the river, the same river into which they dumped sewage. With no system of solid waste collection, all waste was subsequently dumped into the same river. The lack of access to water, refuse, and medical facilities perpetuated health related issues including dysentery, malaria, AIDS.

Most structures are houses, but retail stores and service providers exist in droves, located together on larger paths. Bars, food stands, clothing vendors, butchers, pool halls, and even dry cleaners exist to serve the local community. Few facilities, such as schools, clinics, and community centers existed as part of the community’s broader social network. A large number of the population work providing services to the local community. Schools had existed informally in churches. Commerce is vibrant and thriving within the slum –many stores, businesses –fully self-contained community. Many of those who don’t work in the slum walk to town, sometimes upwards of six kilometers to reach work in the offices, hotels, and stores of downtown Nairobi. Despite a huge number of people working both in and out of the slum, a large percentage of the population has either no regular income, or earns too little to afford the costs of food and rent. When considering both those who work and those without employment, the daily income for residents in Mathare averages US$1 per day.

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