Schooling in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya

This photo is part of an album by photojournalist, Rubén Salgado Escudero, of an elementary school in Kibera, an immense slum in Nairobi, Kenya & a fashionable site for slum tourism. The population estimates for Kibera vary considerably from slightly over 170,000 by the Kenyan government, other agency estimates ranging from 205,000 to 270,000, up to 1 million by the UN (& most frequently cited in the media). Whichever way you cook the numbers, it’s a lot of people living in extreme poverty. In the school Escudero visited, there are about 500 students in broken down classrooms without electricity. While the photos show the squalor of school facilities, they are not voyeuristic or insulting to the children, whose dignity is evident in every shot. As can be seen in the algebraic depictions behind this little student, serious education is going on here.