Help John Chweya Empower Kenya's Waste Pickers

Friends, Colleagues, Strangers ...

I'm here to ask you to help a hero. Someone devoted to improving community well being whose work is being felt and acknowledged around the world.

My friend John Chweya is President of the Kenya National Waste Pickers Welfare Association. A native of Kisumu, Kenya, John was named one of TIME Magazine's Next100 for his mission to improve the lives and working conditions of over 36,000 waste pickers in East Africa while amplifying the voices of tens of millions of waste pickers around the world fighting for future free from the impacts of waste colonialism .

Kisumu is a Kenyan port city on Lake Victoria. With a population of almost 1 million inhabitants, it is the 3rd largest city in Kenya, generating about 500 tonnes (over 1 million pounds) of solid waste per day, most of which is organic. For decades, waste that had no value for recyclers, or unsorted waste collected by private companies, was brought to a dumpsite at the heart of the city on which approximately 50 waste pickers lived, and many more made an income from.

In 2022, without proper notice to the “Kisumu Waste Pickers Welfare Association”, the dumpsite was decommissioned and relocated 30km away. This has created a tremendous hardship for the waste picker community, many of them losing not only their source of income but also their homes. Because of the price of transportation over a long distances and challenging roads, those who collect from households have seen the cost of waste disposal tripling. Transport now represents 90% of what waste pickers earn with collection, leaving very little margin to survive.

Waste pickers mostly collect from low-income settlements. With taxes and fuel prices skyrocketing, the local community is struggling to build wealth and has not succeeded in increasing the price for collection to make up for exorbitant transportation costs. As a result, people unsubscribe from the service and resort to illegal dumping or open burning of their waste.

John and I have therefore set up this fundraiser to help community waste pickers get their own trucks, build local resilience and save on imposed transportation costs while expanding their collection within the city.

Please donate what you can and share!

Thank you!

John & Graham