A group of Kenyan youth have made efforts to transform the city by making use of art and paintwork to beautify the environment.
This project was a collaboration between Street Arts Sans Fronteres from France, Edmond, and Naitiemu who is in Kenya; under an organization called Switcharoo.
Apparently it was a self driven project Naitiemu says that it was not funded by anyone. With her little money, and the other artists little money, they got things done.
She mentioned in one of her tweets that because they believe in making a positive change in the community, they dint sit around and wait for a sponsor, they sacrificed a lot of comfort for this project.
Naitiemu and her team have managed to tag more people along to take up this cause and more people have shown interest to being part of the team by joining them in their next painting project.
The team has worked with the community and they made it known that the particular moment when they worked with street kids was indeed a very interesting and beautiful experience for them.
As the project blooms, some critics have expressed hate claiming that some of the paintings for instance one that seems like the rainbow colors is a way of promoting and encouraging same sex relationships since there is a resemblance in the painting and the LGBTQ colours.
Naitiemu who is part of the art team says that it is not even about color but their intention is making a positive difference in our community.
‘A lot of times we wait for others to help us, we have the power within us to make a difference NOW. even by just smiling to a stranger, little acts of kindness’ she stated
Some Kenyans have expressed the love for this initiative yet again the people behind the project are faced with challenges.
Before they made this happen, Naitiemu says that the government made it very hard for them to paint.
“We had to pay permit and deal with a lot of obstacles with the authority. So much time was wasted in protocol yet all we wanted was to bring positivity to our country.” She said
Despite the obstacles, the spirit of transformation in the faces behind the project remains vibrant.