Korogocho was created in the 1960s, a shanty town on Government land used to relocate Nairobi slum dwellers and set 11.5 km from what was then the city. It has become home to some 200,000 people living in 1.5 square kilometres. It is now right next to Nairobi’s vast municipal dump, Dandora, established in 1977. One of the largest unofficial landfill sites in all Africa, it now spreads over thirty acres. Parts of the slum sprawl on to it, even as the dump itself sprawls into the slum. 

Many people pick over the dump for a living, for what they can use themselves or to sell, as one  MWAMKO member has done in the past.

All the city’s waste comes here, chemical, medical, industrial, agricultural and domestic. As the heap grows, the rubbish is regularly burned, enveloping the slum in toxic black smoke. Some fires arise spontaneously from the gases forming in the waste. All this has profound and documented consequences for health, on top of those the residents already face from overcrowded conditions, lack of clean water and sanitation. 

In 2001 the dumping site was declared full and a health hazard for the neighbouring population but it continues to operate as before. A UNEP report showed long ago that the toxic fumes cause a wide variety of consequences for people's immune, nervous, endocrine and reproductive systems, with more than half the children having lead levels in excess of international norms and with residents suffering a high level of respiratory diseases and cancers.

The area is characterized by overcrowding, by limited access to economic and social opportunities, and by its high levels of unemployment and of crime. Most workers are engaged in the informal economy or self-employed and there is great poverty.

Some of the MWAMKO members were born here and their children and grandchildren also.