HOME   WHO   HOW   NEWS & BUZZ   ADVOCACY VIDEOS   FEATURE DOCS   NARRATIVE FILMS   CURRENT FILMS   BUY FILMS   TRAILERS

Jua Kali Project Summary

“Sometimes when something really bad happens to you,
it’s like a stone inside…but this can turn into a seed,
and something inside you begins to grow…”

Grace is a 16-year-old Kenyan girl with a mission. Despite losing both her parents to AIDS, she’s determined to finish her education. She dreams of one day becoming a writer, just like her hero, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, one of Kenya’s greatest novelists. Leaving behind her friends at the tea plantation where her mother worked, Grace moves to Nairobi for a job as a house-girl. Her determination and feisty disposition impress her boss, Daudi, an “educated abroad” Kenyan, torn between loyalty to his country and the corruption surrounding him. He’s also battling with his depressed wife and spoiled kids, who don’t see the value in their family’s return to Kenya. He seeks refuge in conversations with Grace, but one night things go too far, and when his frustration releases itself, he rapes Grace, forcing her into the streets.

Navigating the gridlock and pulse of the slum, Grace makes several friends, including Surfer Girl and her pack of ‘chokoro’, (charcoal) street kids who survive by recycling things from the city’s sprawling dump. She’s drawn to Tonza, an easy-going, flirtatious 19-year-old bus driver who introduces Grace to his sister Rose, a prostitute. Together, Grace, Tonza, Rose and Nozwe, a two year-old orphan infected with HIV, improvise a makeshift family, among the hundreds of other jua kali, (vernacular for street entrepreneurs), making something out of nothing under the harsh sun.

Nozwe’s disease progresses and despite honorable attempts of medical assistance by Joanna, a British AIDS researcher, Nozwe dies. Deeply concerned for Rose’s welfare, Grace convinces Rose to participate in Joanna’s vaccine study, in exchange for medical coverage. The controversial study is turning up scores of prostitutes like Rose, testing negative for the virus, a discovery that is leading to the very first research into developing a vaccine.

Grace is relieved to hear that Rose is negative, and for a while things start to look up. Grace saves her money for school, selling water to slum residents, hanging out with Tonza and the chokoros. She even buys a new school uniform, thinking she will be able to return to school soon.

Nevertheless, she hides her rape and fear that she may be HIV-positive from everyone. When she finally musters the courage to get a test, it comes back positive, and her world collapses. She returns from the clinic to find her hard-earned money has been stolen, by none other than Tonza, who never told her had a wife and sick child, back in his village.

After going through what seems insurmountable hardship, Grace is forced to make a choice: will she become one of the 25 million, faceless, forgotten orphans, or will she stand up and speak out? More than anything, she learns to overcome her fear of being rejected, learning that her greatest gift is to allow herself to be human, to be loved.