WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PROVE

Do you spend your time and effort in futile attempt to live unto someone else's standards? what are you trying to prove and why? Fulfilment comes not from impressing others, but from being, as completely and magnificently as you can, the person you are.

consider how much of your anxiety, worry and frustration come from your striving to live up to the expectations of others to say the "right" things, drive the "right" kind of car, wear the "right" clothes etc. Of course we must be respectful and accepting of the people around us. we must also be careful not to be enslaved by their arbitrary definition of what has value and what doesn't.

Break free from the need to be accepted. the value of your life comes not from what others think of you. it comes from the degree to which you become the person you've always known you were meant to be. the admiration of others cannot be fully gained by chasing it. Paradoxically, the more you become your own person, the more you will be admired by others. 

set your own standards and set them high. pursue excellence with sincerity. forget about trying to prove anything. just go ahead and be the best you can be.

AFROPOLIS - THE CAST

This installation produced a scenario of a slum development project in a style somewhere between a Tv soap and a comic strip.Upgradasion as its also called, provides an insight into the complex economies and power relations in a slum.
It was developed in cooperation with Sam Hopkins, scriptwriter Charles Matathia, director Hawa Essuman and editor Chris King

                                                            Irungu Wa Wairimu(Irush)
He is an actor, acrobat and drummer. He has been working with safe ghetto. He is well known for his role as "Vinnie" in the 2010 S.A.F.E feature film-Dreams of Elibidi

                                                                       Kaboy

                                                                Billian Okoth Ojiwa
He is an artist, songwriter and the founder of billian music family. He is a young leader who recently vied for the mathare parliamentary seat      

                                                           Paul Peter Kades(Kadez)
He has featured in a number of kenyan tv shows and films as well as working as an actor. Kades writes for a national comic and radio show(shujaaz.fm), that has since won two international awards and an International Emmy Awards 2012

                                                                 Bilal Wanjau
He plays the role of Wilfred(mr. rent) on africa magic swahili-sumu la penzi. He is also the newest governor in town(Gavana-ktn)local drama on the new county government structure in Kenya. The story of governance is told through the lens.    

                                                                     Cosmas Nganga

He is a camera operator and a locations scout. He is a senior member at slum tv.

                                                        Vincent Omuga
He is the programmes coordinator at slum Tv, camera operator and video editor

                                                   

                                                                                Victor Njoroge

Camera operator at supersport kenya, and also an actor

MY WORLD

Photos by David Mbuthia

 As film makers we sometimes ask questions though we don't have answers. Like one filmmaker said, movie making is a philosophical exploration. We invite the audience to come on the journey and discover what they think and feel. Movies are meant to touch our hearts, awaken our vision and change the way we see things. Its meant to take us to other places, open doors and minds. They should be the memories of our lifetime. Audiences are harder to please if you are just giving them special effects, but they are easy to please if your film has a good story. The audience is also the toughest critic. A good story that exist in your world may not be the first choice for an audience. Just remember to inform, educate, entertain

Slum Film Festival August 2012 Edition Preparations Kicks off

The Slum Film Festival (SFF) is an innovative community-based film event, featuring stories from, by, and about people living in urban slums everywhere. The first showcase, celebrated in August 2011, paid special attention to the images of slums around Nairobi. This year, this new edition will focus on movies made by and about the slums in East Africa. In only one year, the SFF has solidly grown and has defined itself internationally as an inspiring platform for the promotion of young artists from the slums.

The second edition of the SFF in Nairobi will take place in Kibera and Mathare slums, from 6th to 13th August 2012. This event does not want to legitimise the existence of these informal human settlements, but to raise more public attention while changing people’s perspectives towards these spaces and the people who live in them.

The 2nd SFF’s mission, achievements and programme of main activities will be presented, together with the new SFF poster and web-blog.

Visit the blog Slum Film Festival for more information.

  

KIDS ARE KINGS

The project commissioned by Gail Pickering, an artist based in London, relates to an archive of material related to a community television project which operated briefly in France in the mid-1970s. This was based in a new town which housed predominantly  working class community of Algerians, Morrocans and French residents.

Camera photo of the kids and kings film in exhibition.

Slum TV parallels this post-68 social model, a mirror in many ways of its core philosophy. Slum TV presented a film for exhibition, a sort of rearticulation of the archival material. Co-directed by Idah Opollo and Esther Waweru, the project is a deep concept close to Slum TV and Slum TV was happy to take part in the same.

 

Pictures of the exhibition setup courtesy of Gail Pickering

Related links: The Whole World Is Watching-PDF
                    The Whole World Is Watching

WATER

Am begining to think that clean water is relative. every day as i walk to the organization where am based, i come across lots of people who are out looking for water. but my concern is how clean is this water. back in high school we would even drink water from basins used for bathing and no one got sick. closer home we buy water from vendors and we have absolutely no idea of where this water is from and we just use it. there are brocken pipes everywhere and when we open our taps what come out is some brownish water and all we do is let it settle and we use it.
some time back water guard was introduced in the market but some people said it was jik only the intensity reduced. this no one can tell also. But really when do say that water is clean ? those who boil are few, water containers are also not very clean, we consume the same not minding the source.
well clean water will to me remain being a personal initiative since we all have our own definition of clean. whichever way, enjoy the water you've got.

SWIMO ...... SWIMMING IN THE RIVER.

Every kid in Mathare has once in their life gone swimming in the River. this is so despite the fact that the River is considered very dirty. The water is not clean as residence along this bunk use it as a way of disposal. when we were kids we used to call it duf mpararo ..... i.e once you were out one would look like ash was smered on them.
This used to happen especially on weekends and school holidays. my parents would scream once i got back home since i was beyond recognition but this did not stop me. Here i would forget that boys or girls were around all that was in mind was to swim or rather play with the water.
Yes i would like to give my kids better, but is swimming in this river bad ? no one really told me of its consequences and till now i fancy the young ones who go there. should i still allow my own to go duf-mpararo, how fun is it ?