Welcoming SDI-Kenya’s Board and Executive Director

Muungano SDI-Kenya, is pleased to announce the appointment of a new board of Directors and Executive Director. These are 2 key milestones in strengthening SDI-Kenya’s governance structure. The new board members and the newly appointed Executive Director bring years of experience and leadership to steer the organization towards consistent alignment with SDI-Kenya’s mission, vision and goals.

With significant consideration given to the experiences and expertise needed to successfully guide the organization in its next phase of growth, Joseph Kimani was selected to serve as SDI-Kenya’s Executive Director. Kimani is an experienced community organizer with over 19 years of experience in community engagement, research and development. Kimani has a Masters in Community Economic development and has worked extensively with Civil Society Organizations in civic and political rights, peace building, economic development, governance and community organization.  Kimani is instrumental in initiating and coordinating a number of projects that have continued to be feasible in the informal settlements today. Among some of these projects include, the youth program, (Mwamko wa Vijana), waste management projects in Mathare among others. Kimani was also very useful in leading the social process during the Huruma slum upgrading and facilitating major community forums and slum dwellers convections.

The Executive Director supports the board of Directors in delivering the organization’s overall vision of inclusive cities that are resilient as envisioned in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and where the urban poor communities have adequate housing and services and are able to live in dignity.

The Board consists of;

Joseph Muturi; Joseph Muturi is a national community leader of Muungano wa Wanavijiji, the Kenyan Slum Dweller Federation which for 20 years has campaigned against forced eviction supporting security of tenure and improved services for the urban poor. Since joining the federation in 1998, Joseph has played a key role in negotiating and implementing projects to strengthen security of tenure and improved living condition for the urban poor communities in Kenya. Muturi has for many years worked to assist communities to build consensus on strategy, budgeting, planning and actual implementation of projects. He has been instrumental in building national federations in East Africa and has established partnerships with Government and key stakeholders both for Muungano Wa Wanavijiji and the SDI network.

Jack Makau; Jack is a slum upgrading practitioner, designing planning and policy solutions that prioritize the urban poor working to ensure community voices are prioritized in the African city development. Over the course of his career, Jack has been involved in informal settlement enumeration and mapping processes. He has also taken part in supporting various community processes in more than 400 informal settlements in cities across Africa. He has experience in enumeration, slum profiling and participatory urban planning. These processes have included citywide enumerations, development of Railway Resettlement Action Plan in Kibera and Mukuru in Kenya, the Mukuru Special Planning Area (SPA) among other processes.

Jason Corburn; Jason is a professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning and School of Public Health. He directs the institute of Urban and Regional Development and the Center for Global Health Cities at UC Berkley. His Research, practice and teaching focuses on urban health in the United States and globally. He holds a Bachelors degree from Brandeis University, a Post-Doctoral degree in Epidemiology from Columbia University and a PHD & MCD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Professor Corburn leads various action-research projects. His research and practice address issues such as ethical disparities in health, citizen-science, community health and healing, urban gun violence, climate justice, health-in-all-policies and informal settlements and health equity.

Sophie King; Sophie King has predominantly operated within the field of participatory action research and learning, linking community practice and academia. Sophie’s key focus has been working with communities to explore ideas, strategies and methodologies for amplifying community voices and co-producing solutions to alleviate poverty and address intersecting inequalities. Sophie has a PHD in Development Policy and Management from the University of Manchester, an MA in Social Research from the University of Leeds and a background in community development practice and participatory action research within the Greater Manchester city-region. Sophie is currently a founding manager of CLASS, a small community development Charity which works in alliance with a network of women-led savings groups called community savers. Women leaders within Community Savers have been innovating based on the ideas obtained from Slum Dweller International since 2016, with support from the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester.

Mary Mutinda; With over a decade of field work focusing on social life, Mary Mutinda helps policy makers and organizations better understand the choices and constraints of the daily person and improve their strategies to meet human need. Mary’s work particularly focuses on the adapted strategies which the urban poor employ to meet their financing and insurance needs. She currently sees and writes about the world through the lens of cities and urbanization contributing to the UN-Habitat flagship World Cities Report. Mary has consulted for PricewaterCoopers Kenya, Kericho County Government, Slum Dwellers International SDI-Kenya and Garmeen Foundation and Strathmore University Management.

Mary holds a BSc in Actuarial Science from the University of Nairobi and an MSc in Mathematical Finance from Manchester Business School. She is currently pursuing a PHD in Social Transformation at Tangaza University College in Kenya.