Stop the Police Killings
Mama Victor (Benna Buluma) lost two sons, Bernard and Victor, to Kenyan police killings during the 2017 post-election violence. After realizing she was not the only one to experience such injustice from extrajudicial executions (EJE) by police, she started a support group, Mothers of Victims and Survivors Network. Together they share stories of oppression and foster much-needed conversations on the grassroots and global level. Their activism against EJE is considered a threat by police. Since 2015, nearly 500 people have been killed in Kenya by police or reported missing.
This documentary shows how community members in the poorest neighborhoods reclaim their right to exist through civic participation, community organizing and active documentation of human rights violations.
The project documents eighteen families and their stories of survival against a system in which the political elite use police to criminalize poverty through state-sanctioned violence - in the name of safer communities. The aim is to reduce police brutality and achieve redress and justice for bereaved families.
The project team consists of:
Benna Buluma organizes the Network of Victims and Survivors from across Nairobi’s settlements. It actively documents new cases of extra-judicial executions and offers much-needed psychosocial support to affected families.
Wyban Kanyi is a young writer, musician based in Mathare. Founder of Heroes of Mathare, a storytelling project celebrating heroes from a community otherwise branded a slum. Coordinator of the Mathare Green Movement, an ecological justice campaign.
Betty Press has been an award-winning photographer for more than 25 years, living and working in Kenya for many years. In 2011 she published her award-winning photo book, I Am Because We Are: African Wisdom in Image and Proverb, which captured a life-affirming portrait of the African people. Top 50 Critical Mass 2005.
