Women in Kibera slums still amazed by Obama's visit

Ms Zam Obed has decided that on November 4, she and her family will put on “Barack Obama T-shirts” in readiness for an Obama win in the US presidential election scheduled for the same date. That will be on Tuesday.

There is a valid reason behind Ms Obed’s excitement. It lies in the indelible mark that Mr Obama’s last visit to Kibera two years ago left on members of a women’s group she is in charge of.

Ms Obed, therefore, is not only getting carried away by the general hype that Obama has triggered in many parts around the world with his presidential bid.

She is looking forward to a possibility of Obama paying another visit to Mchanganyiko Women Self-Help Group with the title “president”.

Very proud

The US Democratic presidential candidate did actually indicate on his tour of Kibera slums that he would visit the place again next time he came to Kenya.

Now Ms Obed is over the moon at the sheer mention of the man’s name. “I feel very proud to be associated with this place. We expect that the next time Obama comes to Kenya, he will also visit Mchanganyiko centre and hopefully as US president,” she says.

When Obama came to Kenya in August 2006 and went on a tour of Kibera slums, he spent time at Patricia Hall of the Mchanganyiko Women Self-Help Group. He encouraged the members and listened to experiences of various people.

Ms Obed, the administrator of the centre, may have missed out on Obama’s previous visit, but the fever of excitement that has pervaded the place since then seems to have caught up with her, thanks to the never-ending talk among members about the Illinois Senator’s last visit, more than two years ago.

They always talk about his charisma, encouraging remarks, and the generally warm attitude he expressed. He sat in there with his wife Michelle, listening to stories of mostly small-scale women traders who had benefited from credit facilities.

He was later to declare when addressing Kibera residents: “Any country that develops does so because women are given opportunities and any that does not is because women are oppressed.”

Yet, confesses Ms Obed, they hadn’t known much about the man to even imagine that he would be contesting to become president of the US in just two years.

Negative publicity

“He came here, aware that this is a community hall, and by its name, Mchanganyiko, which means mixture, it is an interactive centre for people from different communities,” says Ms Obed.

“You know, in the outside world when you hear about slums, you don’t associate it with any sense of responsibility and intelligence. Obama was very happy that women from the slum could come up with a project such as this one, which is helping people from this area,” says Obed.

Mchanganyiko Hall is a small centre just off Karanja Road in Kibera, put together by a women’s group. Apart from serving as a social hall, it also hosts workshops. The Mchanganyiko women project that put it all together runs a nursery school.

It was one of the two places that Obama visited in Kibera. The other was Carolina for Kibera, a community-based anti-poverty organisation supported by the University of North Carolina in the US.

The executive director, Salim Mohamed, hosted Obama at this place, but he would rather not utter a word about the visit.

[email protected]