Kenia: Kein Geld für die Kinder (arte)

Writer and Director: Lars Köhne

Producer: Brigitta Schübeler

Production: Anja Kownatzki

Line producer: Anke Meyer

Executive Producer: Hartmut Klenke

Location: Kenya

Broadcast:
September 26th, 2009 on arte

Length: ca: 22 Minuten

 

Content:

All of Africa is affected by the impact of the international financial crisis. The consequences are catastrophic. Especially in Kenya, the already small middle class is falling into poverty because of mass layoffs, tourists and the revenue they bring staying away, and the lack of international loans.

Because there is no work in the rural areas, mass migrations to the big cities such as Nairobi and Mombassa have begun. Without housing or jobs, the families try to find shelter in the slums. Kibera, Kenya’s largest slum near Nairobi, has grown by at least 20,000 people in the last months.

Of all age groups, it is children who suffer most from the catastrophic conditions. Their lives on the farms were relatively safe and sheltered, but now they live in a world of mafia-like structures where rape and human trafficking, often on the streets and garbage dumps of the cities, are the norm. Aid agencies estimate that, in Nairobi alone, there are about 3,000 children living on the streets. The World Bank predicts that 700,000 children will be affected by the impact of the financial crisis in the near future. For, unlike in Europe, an end to the crisis is not in sight in Africa.

Lars Köhne (director) and Simon Fountain (camera) were in Kenya and visited the weakest victims of the financial crisis, the children, on the streets and garbage dumps of the cities.