Life Under Curfew
Newsflash: We are thrilled to announce that Life Under Curfew won gold at the 2022 Information Is Beautiful Awards!
About the CSO
The Social Justice Centres Working Group was founded by community activists in Mathare in Nairobi, Kenya in 2014 to envision a centre that would promote more participatory forms of justice and free the community of human rights violations.
The project team
Stephen Kinuthia Mwangi, Antony Adoyo, and Happi Olal (The Social Justice Centre Working Group, Kenya), Surasti Puri (lead designer, UK), Frenny Jowi (journalist, Kenya), Richie Uchenna (data analyst, Nigeria), Evelina Judeikyte (senior data designer, France)
The result
The project
‘Life under curfew’ is an interactive real life data experience created by and for the residents of Dandora, an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya.
When Covid-19 hit Kenya in the spring of 2020 amongst the hardest hit were those living in informal settlements like Dandora. Strict curfews and increased police brutality lead to arbitrary arrests and killings, traumatising and severely impacting the lives of its residents.
The data
To document the human rights violations taking place in the informal settlements in Nairobi during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Social Justice Centres Working Group conducted a survey between 15 April and 6 May 2020. One in five respondents considered police brutality, extortion and arrests as their main security concern during the pandemic. The data also showed that 4188 people had been arrested and 1444 people had been injured as a result of curfew enforcement. 57 people were killed.
The purpose
While under such threat, SJC’s community also showed strong signs of solidarity, such as local tailors producing affordable face masks, artists painting murals to remind people to wear masks, NGOs distributing food etc. Once Covid-19 restrictions eased up they wanted to present the data back to their community and gather more data through engaging activities.
“It’s a very powerful way of connecting communities that have been victimised and marginalised.”
Stephen Kinuthia Mwangi
Legal Coordinator, Social Justice Centres Working Group
Behind the scenes
During the pandemic, the Social Justice Centres Working Group (SJC) worked with community members to collect data about the impact of Covid-19 on their livelihoods.
On Friday 19th November at the Dandora Ward 2 City Council Offices next to Dandora Secondary School, community members came together to visualise data about the effect of curfew orders and other pandemic policies.
This was the first step in sharing data insights back with SJC’s community, so they could begin to tell their stories together.
Visualising insights from the Social Justice Centre survey
Capturing how the community came together during Covid-19
Collecting new data on how people feel about their neighbourhood
With Social Justice Centres Working Group we co-created three data murals, two of which were interactive. One gave community members the opportunity to paint symbols to show who had helped them the most during the Covid-19 pandemic curfews. In the other, community members plotted their responses to a short set of questions using coloured ropes strung between nails.
Strung together, the ropes instantly revealed differences and similarities between community members and sparked discussion. More than 80 people contributed to the mural and visualised their own data.
The project team also created a long-form digital data story.
“Instead of people publishing books that community members are not able to access or read, we put these books on walls, and people can now read them and share the knowledge.”
Stephen Kinuthia Mwangi
Legal Coordinator, Social Justice Centres Working Group
Gallery
Below are some photographs from the community event in Dandora, an informal settlement of Nairobi, Kenya, in December 2021.
