Mukuru being one of the largest slums in Nairobi with a population of over 700000 people has a number of challenges such as poor sanitation, high poverty levels and elevated levels of water, air and soil pollution. When COVID-19 struck, it brought about further challenges such as loss of jobs, increase in school drop outs, more GBV cases, increased crime rates among many more.

Mukuru Youth Initiative (MuYI) in partnership with Oxfam have been running a campaign dubbed “Tuko Pamoja” in Mukuru informal settlements. The projects main objectives were to drive positive behavior change to prevent and contain spread of COVID- 19 and reduce deaths and to protect lives and livelihoods of survivors of SGBV, which were achieved through various approaches with the coordination of a team of champions in the community.

The main project activities that were to be carried out were: sensitization of the community on COVID-19 and GBV, distribution of NFIs, collection of perceptions, promotion of hand washing and music production.

Out of the 1080 beneficiaries, we were able to reach 76% of them with the items. Some of the challenges that hindered full redemption included; some of the beneficiaries had shifted from Mukuru, others gave out unreachable contacts, a number of beneficiaries did not pick their calls since they thought it was a scam and others were reluctant to pick the items from the shop.

Some of the major successes were:- we managed to reach over 15000 online users on social media platforms with the music produced, we also highly promoted hand washing practices through the 50 handwashing stations that were distributed within the community.