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