CONTEXT
Mukuru slum sits on a hillside below the factories that make up the industrial area of Nairobi. Heavy rains carry toxic pollutants through the community, pouring into Ngong’ River. Once fresh and clean, the river now runs opaque; sewage and garbage clutter its banks. Enterprising urban farmers draw water from the river to sustain small gardens that grow from the toxic soil. Nearby, a dumping site draws youth from the slum. Largely shut out from employment at the factories that pollute their community, scavenging for items to sell is one of the few economic opportunities available to the youth of Mukuru slum. Many eventually turn to crime and selling drugs. Violence and sexual assault are all too commonplace, jeopardizing the well-being and claiming the lives of many young victims.
WAJUKUU ART PROJECT
From this landscape Wajukuu Art Project has emerged, a testimony to resilience and the capacity of people to transmute suffering into beauty. Wajukuu Art Project is a registered community-based organization situated in Lunga-lunga neighborhood of Mukuru slum. Wajukuu empowers children and youth to use art to connect with their heritage, cope with challenges they face in their home and community, speak out against injustice done to them, and envisage an alternative future.
Our core values are:
- Creativity and Innovation: We are open to new ideas, embracing change, and taking disciplined risks to innovate and develop sustainable solutions for ourselves and the community.
- Integrity: We always act in the best interests of the community, never compromising our reputation and principles.
- Collaboration: We believe everyone is gifted and has something to offer given an opportunity thus we respect and value each other’s contribution, thrive on our diversity, and work with like-minded individuals to leverage our strength in making a difference in the community.
- Accountability: We take personal responsibility for using our resources efficiently, achieving measurable results, and being accountable to supporters, partners and, most of all, children.
- Ambitious: We continuously challenge our limits and those of the community, set high stretching goals and are committed to improving the quality of everything we do for ourselves, the children and youth and the community at large.
Wajukuu art project is a registered, community-based organization. It is a collective of artists, with art as the foundation of the organization. Wajukuu was started in 2003 by a group of artists who came together to support each other as artist.
As art is a tool to connect, learn, educate and build bridges to a better tomorrow, Wajukuu’s main area of focus is art, culture/heritage, education, advocacy, and financial empowerment for our main target groups, kids, youths and community. An empowered community using the arts as drivers for social change, can inspire children and youth. The arts are a tool for empowerment, creation of new ideas and stretching boundaries, personal expression, enhance community development and healing to achieve lasting change in their lives.
ART AND CULTURE
Art is the backbone of Wajukuu. Wajukuu artists produce and sell art works, also to present culture and heritage within our community and to the larger Kenyan society. By using art we also have been able to present our community’s daily activities and interactions bringing out our heritage and responsibility of making sure our voices are heard. In Wajukuu, art is not just a practice, it’s a way of life. Thus, we run a broad range of activities:
PUBLIC ART / MURALS
Wajukuu art studios are in the community and these comes the responsibility for artists’ to engage the community in public arts activities that adds enormous value to our cultural. Public art aids social inclusion by offering a tangible element within space or place that brings people together. . Public art encourages human interaction, with each other, with the artwork and with the space. An artwork’s ability to delight, challenge, enrage, explain, beautify and tell stories. It may also prompt discussion among those at the site and with others who will visit. Public art will also contributes to the community's identity, fosters community pride and a sense of belonging, and enhances the quality of life for our residents.
PRACTICING ARTISTS
Wajukuu features a rich collection of artists with individual artistic path working towards the collection vision. Depending on individual artist growth and changing times Wajukuu artists are diverse when it comes to ideas and themes in their art works. Some of the ideas in the artists’ works are internal exploration individual identity and other representing observable human conditions of living in a slum, we present these encounters of what it means to put up with conditions that are less comfortable or of lower quality and at the same time proving that humanity is equal on many levels, we investigate modern perception of identity, how one can accept other cultures and live in tolerance with each other.
ART WORKSHOPS
Wajukuu hosts workshops for professional and up coming artists facilitated by Wajukuu artist and sometimes invited artist. These workshops art and marketing, technology, intellectual property, and mental health. These workshops aims to assist the artist improve their artistic skills, to market their art work, be updated with the latest technology, learn how to protect and benefit from their art work after they sell, and to take care of themselves physically and mentally.
EXHIBITIONS
An art exhibition is essentially the best way and fundamental to establish an artist professionally. It is a breaking ground for artists and platform for artist to market them self as a brand. Art exhibition helps bring that hidden essence and emotion before the people that admire and understand it. Apart from all that, exhibitions are where artists make their living by selling their art works. Wajukuu organizes exhibitions for professional and up coming artists. Additionally, we participate in art fairs and art biennale to reach a much bigger audience and have a global art presence.
KIDS CLUB
Through art classes, Wajukuu empowers children and youth to use art to find their true selves, connect with their heritage, cope with challenges they face in their home and community, speak out against injustice levied upon them and envisage an alternative future.
EXCHANGE PROGRAMS/RESIDENCY
For artist to expend their creativity Wajukuu will organize exchanging program with other artist collectives, gallery, schools, and cultural centers local and international. This will give artists the opportunity to live and work outside of their usual environments, providing them with time to reflect, discover and create new art work.
MAKER SPACE
Under Maker space we provide access to special courses that teach craft skills, artistic design, and business building. The aim is to give young people the opportunity to lead a self-determined life and use their creative potential to earn a living and contribute to the development of their community. The core principle is to overcome challenges together and share the knowledge we have acquired. In the spirit of inquiry-based learning, the Makerspace makes a valuable contribution to educational equity through open and barrier-free access to these resources. Wajukuu maker space Impact technical, design knowledge and skills to youths in order enable them to solve everyday problems.
OPEN KITCHEN
This was was during the heavy floods and demolitions (Year 2024) that affected our community. As a community led response to the situation, we felt the need to start an Open kitchen where we served the victims of the flooding, breakfast and hot meal. Due the economic hardship and realizing that families are forgoing meals, we decided to keep the initiative running and until now we feed the community once a month reachimg out to over 1000 community members.
URBAN FARMING
The aim of starting the farm is to have healthy food and gaining knowledge through experimenting different techniques, pass knowledge to kids on how to grow their food organically and also to make them get the touch of soil and the connection with our roots and spirituality through taking care of mother earth, by engaging in healthy farming practices. Wajukuu main goal is to own a farm outside Nairobi to create an agricultural and a cultural hub.
WAJUKUU ART FESTIVAL
Art is an integral part of culture, for Wajukuu it is an essential communication medium. Without culture, we are lost. We believe that the arts have the power to transform individual mind set and a community behavior. Wajukuu organizes art festival not only to show case our talents or to celebrate our culture but also to enhance our local image and identity. Through the festival we create a positive impact by improving the perception of our place and our people. This festival is also critical in providing access to the arts in our local communities and a chance for the artists to meet the public, and vice versa. We create a platform to engage with large and diverse audiences.
LIBRARY
Wajukuu library program is an ideal need for children from our community and its surrounding since most kids lack access to a conducive space to study, in some cases, parents lack time for their kids due to their day to day hustle, hence paying little attention to their kids’ education and also some local schools not being equipped with the needed amenities for a conducive learning environment. At the moment we have no physical library because it was demolished to pave way for a sewer line.
