Will you help ensure women’s futures aren’t thrown away?

Dandora is a slum in Nairobi, Kenya, and home to 140,000 people. Lorries bring up to 2,000 tonnes of waste from across the city to their home every day. Among the dangerous, filthy waste are women collecting recycling to sell and feed their families. 

Without protective equipment, they face cuts, infections, and disease, often living nearby in cramped slums where waste spills into their homes. With no other options, many bring their children with them to the dumpsites, where they risk tragic accidents amidst heavy machinery.

Women waste workers are exploited, often viewed as “dirty” and given unfairly low prices for their hard work. But with your support, VSO volunteers can offer essential resources that change lives. Women working on the rubbish dumps are doing an essential job, recycling waste. With your support, expert VSO volunteers can help them:

• Work safely (everyone is provided with protective clothing).
• Live safely in an area where there are high levels of crime and drug and alcohol abuse.
• Sort waste, which will enable them to get a better price.
• Prioritise items that have a higher value.
• Use a buyback centre that will give them a fair price for the waste they pick.
• Keep children safe. By building affordable childcare centres near the dumpsites, giving mothers a safe place to leave their children while they work, and allowing them to focus on their jobs without fear for their children's safety.

VSO has an ambitious plan to help 3,900 waste pickers to improve their livelihoods and for 6,000 tonnes of waste to be collected. Will you help?

Please, donate today, and help make sure women’s futures aren’t thrown away.

We value every gift that you give, and will always put it straight to work as quickly as we can. In 2023-24, 85p of every £1 you gave went directly towards tackling poverty worldwide.15p was spent on the day-to-day running of the charity and raising the next £1 so that we can help even more people this year.