Matal, Kenya - Joseph Kariaga and his friends once lived a "gangster life" in the Mathare slum in Nairobi, snatching phone calls, robbing people and fighting police. But when Kariaga's brother was shot dead by police, the young man took a inventory.

"We said, 'We can't live like this. We will lose our lives.' Many of our friends are dead," Kariaga is now 27 years old. I reflect my life. ”

Now these people are farmers with social tasks. Nearly a dozen of them founded Bearerz in 2017 to keep youth away from crime and address food insecurity in one of Kenya’s poorest communities.

Despite the challenges, visual Bearerz has a modest but meaningful community impact, including feeding more than 150 children at lunch every week. Some residents praised the group and called men's role models.

Experts say such local organizations could be the future of aid in amid foreign funding cuts in the United States and others.

Vision Bearerz works on an urban farm hidden in muddy streets and corrugated metal houses that make up Mathare, one of the most populous slums in Africa. It is estimated that about 500,000 people live in communities less than two square kilometers.

According to the non-governmental organization CFK Africa, about 2 million people, or 60% of the Nairobi population, live in informal settlements, the organization runs health and poverty reduction programs in such communities and is familiar with Vision Bearerz’s work.

The group executive director Jeffrey Okoro said the lack of infrastructure is a major challenge for these communities, which are thriving in rapidly urbanization and thriving youth populations in sub-Saharan Africa.

Okoro added that poverty has put young people in crime.

“Most people in most slums are unable to earn enough to buy a decent meal, while children under the age of 5 are twice as nutritious as malnutrition,” he said. “One of the other major challenges affecting young people is gangs and hope for making money.”

Vision farmer Beards knows this very well.

"When you were born from this land, you didn't inherit much, so you had to do it yourself," said Ben Njoki, 28. "You have to use violence." ”

In 2017, shortly after Kariaga's brother was killed, Njoki and other young people made plans for change. Vision Bearerz chairman Moses Nyoike, 32, said the people they grew up growing up and they had been killed, and they realized that if they could not find an alternative to crime, they would follow them.

To keep busy, the group started collecting garbage and divert profits from trading vegetables, buying produce in another county and reselling locally. They noticed a gap in vegetable supply Mathare and cleaned up a dump under the authority's permission and started planting.

Contaminated soil and water rationing make it a difficult start. Then, inspired by the Tiktok account, which showed agriculture in the Columbia slums, Vision Bearerz tried the hydroponics method. With the help of NGOs supporting community businesses, Grow 4 changes, they are able to access materials and training on urban agricultural methods.

Today, Vision Bearerz grows vegetables and raises pigs and farm tilapia in a small pond. They sold part of the products they produced, and their income also came from car washes and public toilets.

With the revenue, the group purchased corn flour to make Ugali, a dough-like staple and beans that are supplements produced from the farm every week for children’s lunches.

Vision Bearerz also launched an outreach program to warn of drug use and crime and hold meetings on women teaching women health and wellness.

"The life I live in is a lie. It doesn't add up anything. We just lost people. Now, we are winning people in the community."

Davis Gichere, 28, is another founding member called Work Therapy.

There are still challenges. Joining Vision Bearerz requires guarantees that the crime is left behind and that there are instances of recidivism, with at least one member arrested. The lingering reputation of crime in the past has led to police harassment and buying food for Saturday feeding is a struggle.

Funding cuts throughout the development sector, including the demolition of the U.S. international development agencies, dimmed the prospects for new financing.

Nairobi's Kibera slums have another group in the Human Needs Project, doing similar work, urging youth to stay away from crime and address food insecurity through urban agriculture.

CFK Africa's Okoro said this is a model that can be expanded or copied elsewhere.

“The future of development is a locally-led organization,” he said, noting that they are best suited to understand the needs of the community.

Kariaga still feels the pain of his brother's death, but is proud of his new job.

“Farming will change the world,” he said.

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