Langas, Eldoret: Empowering Youth for a Better Environment

Langas is the biggest slum in Eldoret in the north Rift Valley. Langas experienced some of the heaviest violence in the Eldoret area during the post-election violence period. Murdered people were stacked and used as human barricades and the violence was ethnically motivated.

KTI initiated a grant in May for $17,000 to help the youth from diffrent ethinicities and across the political divide in Langas to come together through an effort to clean up the slum through garbage collection. This grant has assisted them to reduce community suspicion. Ethnic no-go zones have been made accessible through this work. During one of the discusions one youth commented that " through the sharing of garbage collection tools we are able to start a conversation with people whom we had not talked to after the violence."

The first step for this grant was to sign a partnership agreement with Langas property owners to allow the youth access to private property so that all areas of Langas could be cleaned. At the end of the grant, property owners will be motivated to pay the youth organization responsible for the garbage pickup to maintain the services.