The starkest difference between the two countries lies in
the response it has prompted from the flats' residents, and the fact that any of the
institutions and companies involved are doing anything in return. In the UK – especially among the middle
classes who live in this block of flats – we use every trick in the book to
shame and embarrass companies into correcting their mistakes, and demand that
the organisations that represent us fight our corner. So this lack of water has been making headlines across all media, the local council has intervened
to provide local showers and toilets, and health inspectors have even been to
check it’s still safe to live there.
But before any inspired Kenyans pick
themselves off the floor and decide to follow their lead and take the fight to
Kenya Power and Lighting (nkt!), I have a cautionary tale from my time in
Nairobi. When we arrived inwe moved into a relatively new block of
flats which were apparently built without anyone checking they could be
supplied with water. We tried not to think about what other short-cuts were
taken. When the water pressure isn’t there, Nairobi Water Company (nktest!) just doesn’t
refill the tanks which supply each of the households. On the sixth floor, this
affected us more often than most. To make matters worse, after we'd introuced some simple rationing, the water supply was inexplicably
cut off. After a couple of days queuing, a lot of emails and phone calls we
found that this was down to the unpaid bills of previous tenants. After we’d
paid the bill twice, they promised to put it back. But
the pipe was never reconnected. Now I am a pushy, educated complainer. If I
reach retirement, I will spend it sending angry, pompous versions of whatever
has substituted the letter to whatever has substituted local councillors. I am
a customer service nightmare; I expect everything I pay for to work. If it
doesn’t, I complain. The more a company tries to ignore me, the deeper I dig my
heels in. So armed with the email trail showing the broken promises and Nairobi Water admitting liability, I asked how I could claim the compensation
for the supply of water I’d had to purchase privately. The reply was sent with
the typed equivalent of a straight face:
We have no system for reimbursing you for this cost incurred. Thank you
and we hope to be able to have the honour of serving you again in the future.
I searched in vain for the
paragraph which began ‘If you are unhappy with this response you can choose to
escalate the complaint or write to the ombudsman . . .’
Our neighbours just shrugged their
shoulders and got on with it. These were the middle classes. Voters. People who
actually paid for their water supply. It was very difficult to accept this
level of nonchalance in a country where people carry round two or three
different SIM cards and switch between them to get the absolute best deal. This
was the beginning of my deflation. My first experience of powerlessness as a
consumer (unrelated to supporting Leeds United, anyway). After farcical trips to the post office,
involving seven separate transactions and some unexplained taxes on parcels, and
hours queuing in Electricity House querying our bills to be told ‘just pay
it’, I was beaten. Usually, white skin and the power/wealth it insinuates in
Kenya guarantees a different response. But I can happily report that most
institutions’ bureaucracy, unaccountability and poor service sees no colour. I can easily understand why people don’t sacrifice hours of
income to try and make sense of it all. Kenyans simply seem to be used to
having no power when dealing with their institutions.
As Allys Williams, our flatmate in that often waterless flat in Nairobi ,wrote in the penultimate post of her (and fiancé
eddie’s) very readable blog :
(Seeing Kenyans) Growing up without loads of “stuff” isn’t the worst
thing; the sad part is when you see people who can’t reach beyond the present
moment because they have been let down so badly by their world that they have
no sense of agency. Believing that one day you will be able to take charge,
even just a little, is worth a parking lot full of Ferraris.
That’s why in many countries
VSO’s focus is on strenthening civil society; empowering people and non-governmental
organisations with the knowledge and skills to hold power to account, to
exercise their rights and take control of their own future. I worked with the brilliant Action Network for the Disabled on
its human rights and advocacy programme, which was giving Kenyans with
disabilities the knowledge, skills and confidence to make the rights they have
gained on paper in the new Kenyan constitution work as a positive force for
their lives. It’s a great example of how well the VSO process can work; I
supported the programme team to help create a clear and distinctive guide to
the rights of persons with disabilities, to refine workshops to train and
support human rights activists in Kenya’s three main cities, and create the
partnerships and connections to extend the impact of the campaign. By marrying
my expertise with their knowledge we expanded the impact of the programme, and
created materials which are now being used within the disability mainstreaming
work of the Kenyan government, and by an international charity’s huge
Kenya-wide advocacy programme supporting over 10,000 people. I visited the
places where the people ANDY had trained were helping people with disabilities
in their communities into school, registering to vote, accessing buildings and
challenging the negative perceptions Kenyan society still holds about
disability.
It was stunning to see, in the
space of those twelve months, the change that could be achieved by a fairly
small organisation led by an inspirational man who has overcome enough barriers
to know that he and his fellow Kenyans can get over a few more.
Go on, sponsor me to run the Leeds half marathon for ANDY. Just give them £3 and they'll change someone's life. Good deal.
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