Josephine’s story: Covid hits Kenya

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2021

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Josephine is a single mother of four in Kibera, the sprawling slum in Nairobi, Kenya. At the beginning of the pandemic she was working as a cook, but soon lost her job, and when the BBC's Ed Butler spoke to her a year ago her situation was dire.

In this episode, the first of a short series about Josephine and Kibera, we hear how she struggled to start a small business to help feed her family. Also in the programme, Kibera community organiser Kennedy Odede explains how those first few months of desperation impacted the slum's residents. And economist Edward Kusewa, explains how those early months of lockdowns in East Africa are still affecting lives.

Producer: Frey Lindsay.

(Image: A woman walks home through empty streets after the 7pm curfew in Kibera, Nairobi; Credit: Kabir Dhanji/AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello there, welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service.
0:09.4	My name's Ed Butler, and it is one year today since the World Health Organization formally declared the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
0:18.9	What a year it's been for all of us. 12 months ago on this program,
0:23.2	we were hearing a story here on the streets of Kenya, to be more precise, from Africa's
0:29.0	largest slum dwelling, Kibera, which lies on the outskirts of the capital Nairobi.
0:35.2	My friend sent me some little money.
0:39.1	So I bought the food that I've been using.
0:42.4	Now I'm out of the food.
0:44.3	Now money is the problem.
0:46.7	Now I'm just rented.
0:48.8	I don't know what to do.
0:50.7	That's Josephine Mucilwa.
0:52.4	She's a single mom living in Kibera speaking to us on Business Daily last March.
0:57.5	We tracked her down through a local charity. Now, take note of her name because we're going to be hearing a lot more from Josephine over the next few weeks.
1:06.6	She told us first about her own desperate situation as local restrictions began to take hold.
1:12.3	She'd lost her job. She'd been working in a school that had shut down.
1:16.3	I have nothing. Even right now they have not left. They are just saying, Mommy, we want to eat.
1:22.0	Now I'm wondering what you like to give them to eat.
1:25.6	I'm feeling so sad. I'm really just regretting my life. I'm just
1:30.9	beginning with God. Well, we try to bring you all kinds of stories here on Business Daily about
1:35.6	the challenges that people face, especially financial ones, but for us, this one tale really stood out.
1:42.5	This month, we thought, to mark the anniversary of the pandemic,
	...

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