Street Art inspires communities to take climate action in Kenya
This wall mural was completed in August 2020 as part of the Weather Mtaani* awareness campaign which has been running as part of the pilots under the DARAJA**, in Nairobi’s informal settlements, Kenya.
The mural is one of two in Kibera, showing how to use the new forecasts produced by Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) to take preventative action prior to high impact weather, in this case, extreme rainfall.
It includes the weather forecast table the KMD releases on a weekly basis and the weather update SMS which is shared by community leaders across Kibera.
It’s a great example of how urban communities can use forecasts to take preventative action, and is on view to locals as they go about their day-to-day activities.
The mural is located in Lindi village, one of the 13 villages that form Kibera. It is next to a football field where a large number of children spend their play time, and close to a footbridge that links Kibera to the estates around where people pass on their way to work.
It was commissioned by the Weather Mtaani leaders and Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) in Nairobi, Resurgence’s urban intermediary partner in Kenya, and created by a local painter, called Michigan.
Look out for the DARAJA impact findings in the coming weeks.
For more information on DARAJA and Resurgence, on consultancy, advisory work and speaker engagements from our team of climate experts, please contact dilupa@resurgence.io
*The word Mtaani comes from Mtaa which mean Street. Mtaani is used to refer to informal settlements or slums. Weather Mtaani should be translated as neighbourhood weather.
**DARAJA is a UK FCDO (UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office) funded project of the ***Met Office-led Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) Programme. DARAJA means ‘bridge’ in Swahili. DARAJA aims to improve the climate resilience of vulnerable populations living in informal settlements in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya by building bridges between communities and weather and climate information providers.
DARAJA is being delivered by a consortium comprised of Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) in Nairobi, the Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI) in Dar es Salaam, and led by Resurgence. Within two years of launching, DARAJA has received Grade A reviews from the Met Office, and won a prestigious innovation award from the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP), placing it in the top 6% of innovative resilience projects worldwide. DARAJA has also been shortlisted in the British Expertise International Awards for in the category of International Collaborative Project.
DARAJA is receiving additional support to scale out of Nairobi and Dar es Salaam into other global cities, from the EIT Climate-KIC, the EU ‘s leading public private climate innovation partnership.
***The Met Office, the UK’s national meteorological service.
Photo credit: Pascal Kipkemboi (Kounkuey Design Initiative – KDI)