Kawangware is a densely populated slum situated 12km west of Nairobi. The term ‘slum’ is used to describe Kawangware because the area is so impoverished. The living conditions are extremely poor. The streets are no more than alleys and there is raw sewage everywhere. Scores of children run barefoot on the dirt road and play in mud streets where disease and animals mix. There is no garbage pickup, no indoor plumbing or running water. Large families live in one-room shacks. They have little to eat, they lack safe water and sanitation and have constant insecurity.
Many children have parents who are too ill to provide for them and lack adequate food and clothing as a result and when the parents die they are left homeless because they live in rented homes.