The mission of SASCA is to help people of extreme poverty change their lives. We aim to provide food, education, medical assistance and housing to those in desperate need and try to addresss the root causes of poverty in three specific slums in Rongai, Kenya.
ABOUT RONGAI
Ongata Rongai, also locally known as Rongai or simply Rongaa, is a settlement in Kenya's Rift Valley Province located between the Kaputiei plains and the Western slopes of the Ngong hills all within Kajiado District. It is a fast developing residential urban aggregation in the outskirts of Nairobi with a population of 35,000 in the 1999 National Census but currently estimated between 66,042 and 147,000. The city is situated 17 km south of Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya and lies at 1731 above sea level.
Rongai is noticeable for its serious lack of infrastructure, lighting and social amenities compared to the population it holds. As a matter of fact, it is one of the few fast growing urban centres in the world without a municipal authority. Hence, its development faces serious planning challenges. Although an overall physical plan has been completed and continues to be updated by the Ministry of Lands, it is quite difficult to implement it because of the lack of a viable local government. Various attempts have been made to improve the situation, but they have largely failed. The first serious attempt at settling Rongai's infrastructural deficit was in the early nineties when the Chinese government advised that Rongai would grow to be one of the major metropolitan districts of Nairobi and even offered funds for infrastructural development. These funds were probably embezzled. The Olkejuado county council has on two occasions advertised tenders for construction of roads, markets and bus parks but these have never materialized. Previously the Victory Construction company was assigned by the government to intall drainage along Magadi Road but they never completed the job and actually created a mess by leaving open trenches. All this just goes to show how much Rongai is a victim of poor governance and corruption and unless the Kenyan urban leadership and thinking is changed things look very dim for Rongai. Mounds of garbage have become quite common and unplanned informal businesses are mushrooming at an alarming rate. Traffic jams in Rongai are quite sickening and are caused by lack of a road network such that only one bitumen standard road serves the entire population of Rongai. Furthermore, existing roads are too narrow to allow free flow of traffic and are also unpaved. There is also a lack of enforcement of urban by-laws.
Rongai is noticeable for its serious lack of infrastructure, lighting and social amenities compared to the population it holds. As a matter of fact, it is one of the few fast growing urban centres in the world without a municipal authority. Hence, its development faces serious planning challenges. Although an overall physical plan has been completed and continues to be updated by the Ministry of Lands, it is quite difficult to implement it because of the lack of a viable local government. Various attempts have been made to improve the situation, but they have largely failed. The first serious attempt at settling Rongai's infrastructural deficit was in the early nineties when the Chinese government advised that Rongai would grow to be one of the major metropolitan districts of Nairobi and even offered funds for infrastructural development. These funds were probably embezzled. The Olkejuado county council has on two occasions advertised tenders for construction of roads, markets and bus parks but these have never materialized. Previously the Victory Construction company was assigned by the government to intall drainage along Magadi Road but they never completed the job and actually created a mess by leaving open trenches. All this just goes to show how much Rongai is a victim of poor governance and corruption and unless the Kenyan urban leadership and thinking is changed things look very dim for Rongai. Mounds of garbage have become quite common and unplanned informal businesses are mushrooming at an alarming rate. Traffic jams in Rongai are quite sickening and are caused by lack of a road network such that only one bitumen standard road serves the entire population of Rongai. Furthermore, existing roads are too narrow to allow free flow of traffic and are also unpaved. There is also a lack of enforcement of urban by-laws.
