Penny Kerrigan is from the Haida-tribe, one of the aboriginal peoples of Canada. When the English and the French arrived, the Haida became marginalised along with the other aboriginals. The majority of them died from outbreaks of diseases against which they had no resistance, unlike the Europeans. Up to this day, many aboriginals live in bad socio-economical circumstances.

When Ms. Kerrigan was 16, she married, had a baby and  left school without graduating.  By the time she went to the university at 29, she had two more children. At university, she realised how inferior the position of many aboriginals is for the first time. ‘My parents had never told me about the history of the aboriginals, because they thought it was too sad. Once I discovered it, I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing’.

Penny became active in students politics and, in 2002, founded the first Aboriginal Mother Centre. ‘There are many homeless aboriginals, and mothers especially often find themselves in hopeless situations.’ The activities of the Mother Centre go from basic services like lunch and dinner programs to training programs like life-skills development, parenting skills and some vocational training.

Contact:
Penny Kerrigan
Aboriginal Mother Center
2019 Dundas St.
Vancouver BC V5L 1J5
Canada
1-604-2 53-6262

Unlike her mother, who was from a rural area, Ann Wanjiru was born and raised in Mathare. But times have changed since she was little. She and her nine siblings would be carried on their mother’s back to work at the market until they were big enough to stay with their older siblings. And Ms. Wanjiru, too, took her children with her to work.

But today, mothers are afraid to bring them, as the streets are too dangerous due to traffic, violence and glue-sniffing. Other women aren’t allowed to take their children. ‘Many women wash clothes in the areas next to Mathare, for less than a dollar a day. They are not allowed to take their children there and it isn’t safe. One woman I knew was raped by the man of the house, who was already sick with AIDS. She died.’ Thus, mothers are often forced to lock their children in the house.

Ms. Wanjiru herself has lost four of her nine siblings to AIDS. They left behind eight children in all, two of whom are living with Ms. Wanjiru and the three children she has of her own. Providing for them is not easy: she earns a few dollars a day at the most, selling goods at the local market. Even so, Ms. Wanjiru volunteers at the Mathare Mothers Development Centre, a member of GROOTS Kenya,  in her spare hours. ‘My mother was always attending meetings, she was even part of a women’s group that sang for the president. So I copied what she did, though not with the same goals.’

The MMDC is not a social group, though it does function as a drop-in house as well. At the centre, mothers can leave their children in the care of two child-minders. The costs, 20 shillings a day, are about a quarter of their daily earnings which is ´much, much cheaper than other child-care options,´ Ms. Manjiru explains. The crèche shares the two tiny rooms of 10 by 10 feet with various other MMDC projects, all aimed at improving the situation of women and their children in Mathare.

Apart from the child-care facility and a micro-credit programme, HIV/AIDS seems to be the common denominator: An HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention programme; A home-care training programme for women who take care of relatives with AIDS; An orphan-support programme, for those orphans who are left to take care of younger siblings; even a training in how to take care of the body of a deceased relative.

‘The two rooms are too small by far, and very expensive, the equivalent of 200 US$ a month each.’ But the MMDC is forced to pay as much, because their earlier location in a slum house in Mathare mysteriously burnt down one day. ‘We hope to buy land so we can construct a good house. But land is expensive.’ That the MMDC is essential for the social structures of Mathare is stressed by the fact that almost three quarters of its 6- to 700.000 inhabitants are women now.

´The men often run away when they find they are sick, leaving the women and children to fend for themselves. Other women find their way here from rural areas when their husbands have left them. Before we founded the Mothers Centre, the women had nowhere to meet.´

By Sophie Koers

Born and raised in Nepal, Lajana’s marriage was arranged. ‘There is,’ explains Lajana, ‘a huge difference between an arranged marriage and a forced one.” Hers was not forced, as both her parents and his had married for love, but it was arranged. “My husband studied abroad and asked his parents to find him a wife. We got ten minutes to get to know each other. During those ten minutes he talked about his dreams to help people from poor neighbourhoods. I didn’t think he was serious.’He was. 

An architect, he threw himself into inexpensive,  environmentally-friendly building techniques like the use of mud bricks.  When he died in a plane accident in ’92, Lajana decided to continue the work he started.

She founded Lumanti, which means ‘memory’ in Newari, and got to work. Her goal: to provide houses, facilities and schools for the poor neighbourhoods in the Kathmandu Valley. Lumanti is increasingly successful: in Patan, a poor neighbourhood in Kathmandu, 95% of the children now go to school. ‘All we did was to show them the way and give them moral support,’ says Lajana, ‘They did the rest themselves.