How housing initiative changes lives of widows in Rarieda

Rarieda MP Otiende Amollo helps construct a house for a widow in the constituency. [File, Standard] Rose Otieno, a widow from Memba village West Asembo ward, Rarieda sub-county has no job, no money, no helper and no proper house to stay in. Her late husband left her in a house, which collapsed immediately. She has been staying in a makeshift building using carton boxes and polythene papers. "It is terrible during the night given the strong land breeze and extremely cold in the night and extremely hot during the day," says Atieno. Linda Omwiti, another widow from the West Uyoma ward in Rarieda, developed a fever resulting from poor living conditions, which had also affected her children. There are thousands of poor widows in the Rarieda sub-county who live in squalor conditions like her and require decent housing. Other challenges these women who stay in these makeshifts face include the dangers of fire outbreaks, rains, diseases caused by insect bites, and insecurity due to the vulnerability of the makeshift. These filthy makeshifts are also home to jiggers, lice, ticks, and bedbugs among other disease-causing insects. It is a fact that HIV/Aids has affected and killed more men than women in Nyanza (Source: ScienceAfrican magazine) - leaving behind more widows. As a result, there are many suffering widows in Nyanza. "We had more women taking refuge in churches, markets and schools during the post-election violence," says Jeniffer Adhiambo from East Asembo ward - a beneficiary of the housing initiative known as Ondoa Nyasi project. "The constitution of Kenya guarantees the right to shelter but Parliament has never formulated a framework to implement this right, so l decided to mobilise my resources to fulfil this basic right for widows in Rarieda who are in extreme need," said Rarieda MP Otiende Amollo, the promoter and financier of the Ondoa Nyasi initiative. Ondoa Nyasi seeks to do away with grass-thatched houses and replace them with decent semi-permanent houses. The initiative has been running without donors or any other donations from any quarters. "The National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) cannot be used to build people's houses, so l have been using my own money, says the MP. "The only support we get is manpower from villagers who must also be paid for their work. Other assistance usually comes from constituency staff, ward coordinators." With the help of local, village elders, chiefs and their assistants, the MP can identify the neediest amongst the widows. The construction work takes a day. The cost of building one house is Sh100,000. The MP is personally involved in the construction work apart from being present throughout the work. "The housing initiative comes in handy as a bridge to the deficit in Rarieda and has improved the living conditions for houseless widows like me," noted Mary Adhiambo from Lieta in Uyoma South ward in Rarieda. "l was personally staying in a makeshift with scanty grass thatched roof, barely supported by polythene papers to shield the house from extreme weather from sunlight heat, rainfalls and cold says another beneficiary of the housing initiative," she notes. She says her dream of living in a decent house has been a nightmare. Cultural norms, lack of governmental support, lack of favourable inheritance rights on things like ancestral lands and cultural restrictions by customary laws have placed widows in awkward positions in Luoland. Widows, for instance, cannot construct houses on their own without being inherited. The housing initiative was started in 2017 and has seen the construction of 89 houses with solar lighting bulbs to provide light and warmth. This translates to about Sh10 million so far used to construct these houses.

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