Inside the slum there is a network of small shops and stalls selling fruit and vegetables at very low prices. A large part of these products come from subsistence agriculture projects developed within the slum by local and foreign NGOs.

A small river polluted with waste and collector of part of Mathare's sewage drains flows between the houses. Its water, however, although it is certainly dangerous for health, is often used to water the fields in which the inhabitants of the slum grow various vegetables that they use as food.

A woman brings home the vegetables purchased by the managers of the plots of land used for subsistence agriculture in the Mathare slum. The varieties of vegetables that form the basis of food for the less well-off social strata are cultivated in the fields.

The urban agriculture project within the Mathare slum was developed by local NGOs with the active support of international cooperation organizations.

A woman inside a home in Mathare prepares a meal. The main course consists of vegetables bought directly from the people who grow them in the land assigned to them by local NGOs. These vegetables represent a good quality fresh food for people who often live in situations of extreme social unease.

A woman from the Mathare slum collects cobs of privately grown corn as part of the community agriculture project developed within the Nairobi slum. The vegetables produced are sold to the inhabitants of the slum at particularly favorable prices.

Some of the fields cultivated within the subsistence agriculture project developed in the Mathare slum. Some of the cultivated areas, entrusted to private individuals, also produce vegetables which are put on the market at very low prices.

Many of the small grocery stores within the slum sell the vegetables produced as part of the agriculture project developed within Mathare.

The Mathare slum is considered the most dangerous of those in Nairobi. Inside there are several criminal gangs that control illegal trafficking and make all citizens pay a sum of money for protection against theft and damage to homes. Even the public toilets inside the slum seem to be controlled by gangs, who ask a "tax" from those who use them.

Vegetables sold at low prices in the small open-air shops of Mathare represent an important source of food for the families who live there.

Pots made from containers for industrial use are used to increase the cultivated area as part of the agriculture project developed in the slum. This solution minimizes the consumption of water needed to water the crops. Water that is often in short supply, especially during the long dry season.

About 500,000 people live in the Mathare slum in Nairobi, often in conditions of great social and economic degradation. This girl holds her little brother in her arms who still shows the signs of a serious home accident. The child suffered severe burns in a large part of his body from having overturned a pot of boiling water for the preparation of lunch on himself.

A woman, outside her home, cleans the vegetables purchased by private individuals who grow them as part of the urban agriculture project developed within the populous Nairobi slum.

A street in the slum, between the shacks. The completely open sewer system actually overlaps the road one, with imaginable consequences for the health of the residents.

A man, with the help of a machete, cleans an area of land located not far from his home from the thick vegetation. Once prepared, the soil will then be used for the cultivation of various types of vegetables. An important source of food, this, for very often extremely poor and jobless people.

Most of the shacks in the Mathare slum are not owned by their residents. The dilapidated houses, without running water, are rented, probably in a completely illegal way, by owners, who often do not live within the slum itself.

Several inhabitants of Mathare cultivate plots of land located on the edge of the slum, to obtain vegetables that they generally consume directly or sell in the markets of Nairobi.

The high level of environmental pollution and the absence of an efficient sewage system mean that the health situation inside the Mathare slum is particularly serious.

Many of the small grocery stores within the slum sell the vegetables produced as part of the agriculture project developed within Mathare.

An inhabitant of the slum has created a small lake among the vegetation, in an area bordering a fast-moving road in the city. Filled with probably highly polluted water, the small body of water used for breeding fishes. Fish that, once grown, are then used directly as food or sold in local markets.

Cultivating a field of vegetables or raising ghetto fish in an uncontrolled area of the slum increases the risk that what is produced will end up being stolen by other inhabitants or by people coming from outside. For this reason, this boy has built a refuge from which he can constantly monitor him.