How to Look at a Slum

It’s Not What Outsiders Think; And in order to do meaningful work here, you have to see beyond squalor and misery.

Why is a business consultancy writing about slum life? Because our work with NGOs brings us into contact with it, and because successful development projects are best conceived of as businesses.

Here’s what we’ve learned from our local partners, people who have grown and lived and worked in slums like Kibera, in Nairobi:

Along with misery, there is community, family, joy, hard work, faith, hope, entrepreneurship. You can only understand these things by having a good local teacher and partner. You can never understand like someone who has experienced it. But you can learn enough to invest in meaningful business and community development.