{"id":1338,"date":"2015-11-04T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1338"},"modified":"2016-10-27T14:47:20","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T13:47:20","slug":"trash-and-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/11\/04\/trash-and-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Trash and Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

You might wonder how trash and hope relate to each other.<\/strong> Last Saturday I watched the thriller \u201cTrash: Thieves of Hope<\/a>.\u201d It was filmed in one of Rio\u2019s favelas. It\u2019s a harsh movie that confronts you with the reality of children who survive by picking up items with some residual value from humongous mounds of trash. I couldn\u2019t help but think of\u00a0the slums in Kenya.<\/p>\n

\"U\"<\/a>
Trash piles up in Nairobi\u2019s Eastlands area<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By chance, on Sunday I came across an article about the Eastlands College of Technology<\/a><\/strong>, an educational project launched recently in the Eastlands slum<\/a> area outside Nairobi. Both the movie and the article gave me some hope.<\/p>\n

The movie shows the capacity of human beings to maintain a dignified existence even under survival conditions. A kid finds a wallet in the trash, and two friends join him to unravel a case of political corruption. I won\u2019t reveal any more details: go watch it! The plot will keep you on your toes!<\/p>\n

I first learned about the Eastlands College of Technology during my stay at Strathmore Business School.<\/strong> A model was on show\u00a0at the entrance to encourage donations for it (the project is promoted by Strathmore Educational Trust<\/a>). I was happy to hear about its launch last Spring. Its facilities have a capacity for 800 students, and a second building will open in two years. Its mission is \u201cTo serve Kenya’s Formal and Informal Industry by providing Vocational, Industrial and Entrepreneurial training.\u201d A great contribution to Kenya,\u00a0a country that has 20 million people (50 % of the population) under 25 with an unemployment rate around 80% <\/span><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And here\u2019s where the movie and the College connect, and so do trash and hope<\/strong>: A commentator describes the movie as \u201ca trip to the heart of the misery and the essence of human dignity<\/a>.\u201d And that\u2019s what I felt the Eastlands College of Technology aims to do: enhance human dignity in the heart of misery and trash. Let me illustrate with an anecdote I read in an article about the College.<\/p>\n

Moses \u2013 one of the promoters \u2013 asked some young fellows in the area to help put a fence around the land just purchased for the College<\/strong>, and offered to pay a small amount for each fence post they put up. Moses closed the contract by shaking the hand of each boy. This came as a surprise: \u201cDon\u2019t you know that people avoid us and are afraid of us, and think we are animals?\u201d Stories came out about their life on the street, and their daily struggle to get enough to eat. Moses was treating them as human beings, and that was the beginning of a deep friendship.<\/p>\n

Any thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You might wonder how trash and hope relate to each other. Last Saturday I watched the thriller \u201cTrash: Thieves of Hope.\u201d It was filmed in one of Rio\u2019s favelas. It\u2019s a harsh movie that confronts you with the reality of children who survive by picking up items with some residual value from humongous mounds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":1340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[993],"tags":[346,560,100358,100360,951,1147,100357,1411],"class_list":["post-1338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living-conditions","tag-brazil","tag-education","tag-entrepreneurial-training","tag-human-dignity","tag-kenya","tag-poverty","tag-rio-de-janeiro","tag-unemployment","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1338"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1341,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1338\/revisions\/1341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}