THINK BEFORE YOU TOSS: MAZINGIRA SAFI NI JIRANI MWEMA

 The world is a very small place. It is supposed to bring us close, closer to people and closer to things. It is so small that we ought to be wary of what we say, what we do, and how we interact with even the least thought of things; lest one day we meet when we least expected it, at a place we never thought of, and in a form we could hardly imagine. An encounter that might not be pretty.

Recently, I was sited in class, and in one of those moments where dons just like to digress off topic, my professor asked an obvious question, considering his audience was purely postgraduate students. A question that least makes you to doubt yourself, because you watch TV, read the papers and books, and you attend forums that help you to connect many dots in life; but a question that crosses the mind of very few and even among the few, the question is rarely answered with actions but only left to linger in the cognitive domain.

He asked, “When you buy a candy and decide to toss away the wrapper carelessly, where do you think it goes? Do you ever imagine that the two of you might meet one day but this second encounter might not act in your favor?”

He was obviously hinting at something that is not new, and even as he tried to explain it further, he still left it open and made us to rationalize it on our own, typical professorship. But I tried to be objective and to put myself in the shoes of that candy wrapper or litter for that matter. I decided to write an epitome that embodies the larger reality about litter. I simply decided to bring litter into life, give it a human face, and present it as below.

A lot has been said about me, but the cycle never seems to end.
Stories after stories, nothing ever seems to change.
You leave me in places where I am not supposed to be left.
You drop me on the streets where council workers have just swept.
You toss me out of your car windows, by the road side to stench.
Even after seeing ‘no litter’ sign posts, your ignorance still remains at its best.
I may be disgusting and useless, what do you expect? I am waste.
What good can come out of me? I make a mess.
But just make sure you put in the right place.

I understand candies appeal to your tastes
When you are tired and hungry and all you want is to rejuvenate.
I understand Nairobi does not have enough bins
And you are always too anxious to get rid 
The burden of carry me around
I understand that picnics are fun, when you hold them in public Parks 
You get to share memories that last, for a while, 
But you forget to care for the trash, you leave behind.
I understand most Nairobi streets are dirty
But it’s only fair if you simply do the right thing

You slap Mother Nature right on her face 
when you litter or leave me on the ground.
It’s only a matter of time before she gets
 really mad and unleashes the wrath of an irate woman.
A scene my eyes will honestly hate

But even now, I loathe seeing you and your brood fall ill 
I loathe contaminating aquifers and river streams
I loathe making the air heavy for you to breath
I just loathe when I see you walk on dirty streets
Or see you sleep next to a pile of me

So, if you refuse to understand me
I will be your worst nightmare. Trust me.
If you ignore those litter bins,
Or if you think you are too far from a bin, 
and decide to compromise,
I will be your worst nightmare. Trust me.
Worst all, if you decide to cut down trees
thinking that I have nothing to do with it,
I will join forces to be your ugliest nightmare. Trust me
And that’s where we shall one day meet

But I want to save you a lot of trouble
Put me in the right place and your brood, please disciple
I also think you need to learn how to recycle
It’s a ‘no brainer’, and you are not splitting an atom
You are simply separating waste, something easy to fathom

So much for being in the shoes of a candy wrapper, but if litter was to think like this and everyone understands it, there would be a lot of justice on the streets of Nairobi. Nairobians would operate on a different tier. A tier of kusema na kutenda, for Mazingira Safi ni Jirani Mwema.

MAZINGIRA SAFI INITIATIVE: ONE YEAR…ONE MONTH… LATER

The last one year has been an amazing journey, and I'm so grateful to be a part of it. It's a rare thing to be able to touch people's lives this way, and I try to remind myself to make the most of every opportunity I get.  

As most of you know, MSI is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization that seeks to inspire communities to own the responsibility of keeping the environment clean through action and community participation in our monthly clean-ups, and education programs.

People often wonder the story behind the start of MSI and they ask why I ever thought of starting such an organization. I remember, in July 6, 2013 at conference, I was having a conversation with an American gentleman I had just met. His name is Kyle. He was interested to know my life story and my passion. I remember telling him that my biggest dream is to see a clean, litter free environment in Nairobi with a proper waste management system.

After all that blabbering, he asked me one question, “Why don’t you do something about it?”

I replied saying I was afraid. He looked at me and what he told me next changed everything. 

He said to me,“You have everything you need to do what God has told you to do.”

I had a passion for the environment. I wanted to be a problem solver and to be an influencer. I was tired of seeing a dirty Nairobi, but on that day, I learnt that my passion had to be greater than my fear.

Later, I began sharing the idea with some of my friends who have, since then, walked with me in this journey. Today, the team has really grown. I got six other passionate and self-driven people on board, rallying alongside me as we pursue this vision. To be great, you must surround yourself with greater people. The organization membership has grown to over 200 people and we have been able to have an average of 30 volunteers in every of our nine previous clean ups. 

The team works very hard to ensure that our activities remain a success. The volunteers are so important to MSI because we don’t just want to make Nairobi, and Kenya, and the world, clean. We want Nairobi, Kenya and the world to be made clean by people who live in it. This is because it is their environment and we want them to own it and love it enough to lavish it with beauty in form of green grass and less litter and good waste management.

Like any other thing, we have our fair share of challenges but we continue to overcome them. In our journey, the NCC has really supported us and most importantly, we are on GOD’s side, the Creator of the environment we are fighting to protect. We look forward to more volunteers, more partnerships and a cleaner environment.

So, the story behind MSI came to be as a result of a dream given by God, and passion for the best environment there can be.

It is driven by the same passion, and passionate people who want to be influencers and problem solvers. It is inspired by you and I and other volunteers here who make a difference by owning this environment and committing to making it clean.

It is not MSI’s work to clean up, it is yours and mine. So we clean today, not litter tomorrow and tell everyone we know to do the same and to join MSI for the next clean up, every day from today.

We will be content not when the world is clean but when the people living in the world make it their duty to keep it clean.

HAPPY ONE YEAR, ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY MSI AND MSAFITES!

Purity Wanjohi.

Founder

BUILDING THE "MSAFITE" MOVEMENT

The notion of volunteerism is often seen as a tool for peace and development. This is mainly due to its benefit to the individual volunteers and the contribution it makes to the peaceful coexistence of people within communities and the development of societies. Volunteering opportunities, especially at community level, tend to bring people together to work in solidarity towards addressing issues and challenges affecting communities. They are a way of giving back responsibly and adding value to community projects. But volunteering is also a major driving force for environmental sustainability and protection of natural resources. 

Since August 2013, Mazingira Safi Initiative has made significant strides towards building a community based waste management system in Nairobi and inspiring communities to take up the responsibility of cleaning their environment. The initiative is just one powerful example that exists in different parts of Kenya and the world at large of people uniting and mobilizing action through volunteerism to address the challenges of litter, improper waste disposal, and individual attitude against environmental cleanliness.  Just like the greenbelt movement, which, through the power and support of volunteers managed to empower communities, especially women in communities, to improve their livelihoods by conserving the environment, the initiative is using the power of volunteers to gradually building a strong movement of “clean freaks”, also known as “msafites”. These are individuals from all walks of life who are radical about the cleanliness of the environment.

A movement is comprised of radically minded individuals who are brought together by their desperation to be the change they want to see. History has it that movements can bring down outdated systems, overthrow poorly run governments, and caused terror among those in opposition to positive change. If the combined effort of the ever growing 1000+ "MSafites" is well facilitated, then this will not only support the attainment of environmentally sustainable outcomes but also promote a long lasting process that changes people’s attitudes and perceptions towards the environment and encourage resilience towards realization of change.  Volunteering is a critical driving force that will continue to build the “Msafite movement”. 

Volunteers during one of the MSI's cleanups

All Kenyans should be part of this new wave of clean freaks and give first priority to the environment and the well-being of people before anything else.  Without sustainability, problems such as poverty can never end because pollution, uncleanliness, and environmental disasters deeply affect the poor. Supporting and encouraging each other to be environmental ambassadors in our most immediate environment, puts us in the right path towards achieving sustainability. What Nairobi and the whole of Kenya needs, is msafites and like minded individuals to mobilize resources to ensure that the streets, neighborhoods, towns, and markets remain clean.

It takes our collective effort to ensure streets remain this clean.

Article written by Kelly Wale

LET'S NOT BE COMPARED TO CANCER!!!

I recently came across a very thought-provoking comment posted on the internet. This is what the writer, Agent Smith, wrote: “I would like to share a revelation that I have had. It came to me when I was trying to classify your species. I realized that you humans are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans, do not. You move to an area, and you multiply and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you survive is to move to another area. There is another organism which follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus! Human beings are a virus, a cancer.”

Now, for a person to sit down and think about this and then transfer all his thoughts onto a webpage, he must have either experienced the wrath of our fading environment or was knowledgeable enough to know we are sitting on a time bomb. Agent Smith compared us to a virus, a cancer. These are the worst form of life-forms to ever exist. In my opinion, we are worth being called viruses and cancers. Like many other cities of the world, Nairobi is a city that is dull and full of slabs of concrete on every corner. A city with little green yet our national flag bears the green color. Who is to blame?

Our country is very busy growing steadily in every sector and poorly environmentally. We are experiencing a construction boom yet no nature boom as we go along. Are we doing this out of ignorance of the danger the environment is facing or out of selfish ambitions? Are we climbing the ladder of economic success while stepping carelessly on the head of the environment?

A day is coming when the sun, the trees, the waters, the soil and the wind will gang up against us. It will not be a battle with a hope of mediation. It will be one where humans will cry for mercy. We will sit and soak up the hot sun until we can’t anymore. Our throats will be on fire because we will have no water to drink. We will one day be sitting in the comfort of our big mansions, watching on our big flat-screen TV, news and images of malnourished human beings yet with all the money we will have acquired with our development, there will be no food to buy.

It is time we stop behaving like viruses and cancer cells. It is time to stand up and fight for this precious part of us that just keeps on giving while we give back nothing, time to give environmental issues the attention they deserve, time to take the environment as serious as we take politics. It may be a long shot but every journey starts with a single step. For example, stop littering with the wrapper from your sweet or PK! Thought-provoking, isn’t it? Think about it then act then tell your friends.

Eyes Set on the Big Picture for the Founders of Mazingira Safi Initiative

“The journey ahead is going to be a tough one, but we are dedicated to it”. These are the sentiments shared by the two founders of Mazingira Safi Initiative as they pose next to a pile of waste waiting to shoot a scene in their next campaign video.

The two founders, Purity Wanjohi and Kelly Wale, recall a moment when they randomly approached a German tourist at a popular cafeteria in Nairobi to share the idea of the organization. The conversation went well but concluded with a daunting statement from the tourist, “It is a good thing that you two are doing, but just know that it will be impossible to achieve the dream”. If anyone was to ask why the two are still committed to the organization after receiving such a response, they would point to the big picture. They had a choice to give up right there, but they understood that dreams are only validated by God.

Wayne, Purity, and Wale

As Kenyans, we cannot be oblivious to the environment; it is a terrible thing to ignore. Whether you belong to the social elite, the middle class, or you are simply a ‘Wanjiku’, the responsibility of caring for the environment does not belong to some government agencies or foundations.

Engaging communities in cleanups to increase environmental awareness

The environment is a responsibility of everyone. This is the big picture that the founders of Mazingira Safi Initiative have set their eyes on. It is a picture where Kenyans no longer litter improperly not because of any heavy penalties or fines that might be associated with it, but because they understand its effect to the environment and to their own lives.


It is a picture where there are working structures for effective waste management in every urban center in the country. It is a picture where the amount of waste that goes to dumpsites is reduced by separating the recyclable wastes from the non-recyclable wastes at source. It is simply a picture of a safe, secure, and clean environment.

Organic waste make such good manure

There are a lot of people at stake when we don’t take care of our environment not just in the present generation but also the future generation. The environment was not given to us by our forefathers but rather it has been lent to us by our great grandchildren.

Waste glass bottles are recycled in some of the most beautiful and artistic ways

A CHANGE IN PERSPECTIVE: SOUTH B POLICE BAND CLEANUP

 Located in a 20 acre piece of land, the south B police band serves as housing for more than 500 police men and women with their families. A walk in the compound revealed one serious and common problem of waste management.

I could not help but notice the decomposing hips of garbage thrown away by the residents. The sites have attracted families of the unusual looking ‘undertaker bird’ otherwise known as the marabou stork. The naked head and neck birds are only left to camp at the dumpsites scavenging through the scraps and filth to find something to eat. Parking boys walk through the once protected compound to the dumpsites rummaging through the garbage to find materials that could be sold for recycling. The compound is literary filled with litter either scattered by wind or improperly discarded by residents due to lack of a waste management system.

Some of the volunteers collecting liter

However, with the help of mazingira safi initiative, the south b police post is gradually having a fresh new look thanks to the work that began with a community cleanup on the 22nd February 2014.