Slum-TV is based in Mathare, a slum of 200,000 people in Nairobi. We produce and distribute local, grassroots audio-visual material. The form of the material ranges from documentary features produced by local citizen journalists, to drama and comedies produced by youth drama groups. The content represents the local context through these varied strategies.

The material is then collated into a ‘newsreel’ and screened on a monthly basis in public space in Mathare. Having been screened locally, the content is then uploaded onto the website, which functions both as an archive of this oral history and a means to access a secondary, international audience.

The slum features in the mainstream media almost always as a space of violence, poverty or charity. SLUM-TV strives to provide slum dwellers with a form of self-representation so that they can begin to tell their own stories and offer a more nuanced, multi-faceted and accurate portrait of slum life.

Whilst we mainly screen in public space we also show our content in video booths, an extensive network of a‘pirate cinemas’ across Nairobi. In addition we archive our content on YouTube.

SLUM-TV maintains connections with a network of New Media activists. Concurrent with our monthly production of ‘newsreels’, we host six-monthly workshops, offering specialist training in a variety of new media strategies, ranging from media hacking to open source editing.

Thanks to: Slum TV members (see website). Supported by: Africalia, Goethe Institut Nairobi, Film Aidfull project