Poverty as entertainment: Ending Kibera's slum tours
Kibera, Nairobi’s most notorious slum, is now the subject of a reality TV show. Rasna Warah slams the growing fashion of 'slum tourism'.
Apparently, a reality show-cum-documentary called ‘Famous, Rich and in the Slums’, which has been shot in Kibera, has been airing on British TV in the last few days. The film is being promoted as a fund-raiser for the residents of Nairobi’s most notorious slum.
A British journalist, who told me about the film, and who has lived in Kenya for several years, said that she was ‘shocked and appalled’ at the way Kenya was being portrayed to the British public, and wondered why ‘Kibera has become as iconic as the leaping Maasai warrior used to be’.
The two-part documentary shows four British celebrities, including the actor and stand-up comedian, Lenny Henry, leaving their privileged lives behind to spend a week with residents of what the producers of the film describe as ‘one of the most impoverished places on earth’.
The film by Red Nose Day, a charity whose slogan is ‘Do Something Funny for Money’, shows the celebrities mingling, sleeping, eating and defecating with the locals. ‘It’s like being in hell,’ Henry is quoted as saying, minutes after relieving himself at a pit latrine that he shared with hundreds of Kibera residents.
For many Kenyans, the film is the worst form of slum tourism because it turns poverty into entertainment in the name of charity.
Kennedy Odede, a former Kibera resident who is currently a student at Wesleyan University in the United States, says that while he understands the need among foreigners to witness poverty, he believes that slum tourism is largely a one-way street: ‘They get the photos; we lose a piece of our dignity.’
Slum tourism is one of the fastest growing trends in Kenya, particularly since the films ‘The Constant Gardener’ (partially shot in Kibera), and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ won Oscars.
Odede says that, like the Hollywood films, slum tourism has become another source of recreation for people who think they can understand poverty just by hanging around poor people for a few hours.
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* This article first appeared in the Daily Nation.