Only now after watching Comic Relief’s Famous, Rich & in the Slums can I genuinely understand the impact it must have on Shared Interest staff when they travel to see the communities we help support.
This is the closest I have personally been to seeing the challenges faced by many of the businesses we lend to in the developing world.
I spent much of January this year helping to co-ordinate filming of Monda, a jewellery-making business based in Kenya. Many of Monda’s workers live in Kibera, the slum that was the focus of last night’s BBC programme. So I guess I already feel fairly close to the Monda story, having told it as a case study and more recently as a film.
Still, nothing could have prepared me for last night’s viewing. Maybe it was the raw emotion shown by Lenny Henry and Reggie Yates in particular, or perhaps the sheer scale of the slum as the cameras panned overhead, but either way, I felt as if I was transported into Kibera and could almost experience the sights, sounds and smells for myself.
Words just can’t do it justice. If you missed last night’s showing of Famous, Rich & in the Slums, then I urge you to catch up on BBC iplayer before next week’s second and final instalment.
But the story doesn’t end when the programme does; that is the most important thing to remember. I for one now feel more of an affinity with the work that Monda does and came into work this morning eager to learn more about the future it offers people living in Kibera.
It was in October 2005, that the Monda business moved to Kenya from Ghana where they now work as a social, creative enterprise employing disadvantaged women who are often head of households and the only income earners for the family.
Caroline Monda says: “As business owners, we feel that by employing local women, we are investing in the wider community.” This is because the income they earn once training has been completed supports families as the women are able to pay for food, shelter, clothing and school fees for their children.
Also, the natural materials such as glass and bones etc that make up much of the Monda jewellery, is actually sourced from Kibera. As a result of a Shared Interest loan, Monda has been able to invest in new machinery that will enable them to produce glass beads and cut bone on site.
Caroline says of Monda’s relationship with Shared Interest: “It has had a positive effect. We and our producers have been empowered to employ more women and young people. Monda can now grow with its workers. It is a great boost for the hard working producers.”
After last night’s assault on the emotions and the senses, it is comforting to come into the office and see that in a small way we are helping Kibera’s people earn a fair living. You can’t have watched last night’s programme without wanting a better life for each and every person living in the world’s largest slum, where a million people co-inhabit in a space the same size as New York City’s Central Park (about 1.5 square miles.) This includes over 50,000 AIDS orphans, often cared for by grandparents, overcrowded orphanages, or completely unattended.
If you do nothing else today, then please do watch the BBC’s eye-opening report. Trust me, it will change your life, and make you want to help change the lives of others.
