Mukuru kwa Njenga is a slum

Slum

A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...

 in the East of Nairobi

Nairobi

Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...

, the capital of Kenya

Kenya

Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...

. It belongs to Embakasi Constituency

Embakasi Constituency

Emkakasi Constituency is an electoral constituency in Kenya. It is one of eight constituencies of Nairobi Province. It consists of eastern and southeastern suburbs of Nairobi. With 164,227 registered voters, it is the most populous constituency in Kenya. Embakasi constituency has common boundaries...

. It is one of the largest slums in Nairobi. Kenyan international footballer Patrick Oboya

Patrick Oboya

Patrick Oboya Onyango is a Kenyan football striker, currently playing for the Czech team FK Banik Most....

 was born in Mukuru kwa Njenga. Among other major slums in Nairobi are Korogocho

Korogocho

Korogocho is one of the largest slum neighbourhoods of Nairobi, Kenya. Home to 150,000 to 200,000 people pressed into a 1.5 square kilometres, northeast of the city centre, Korogocho was founded as a shanty town on the then outskirts of the city. In 2009 it was estimated to be the fourth largest...

, Kibera

Kibera

Kibera is a division of Nairobi Area, Kenya, and neighbourhood of the city of Nairobi, located from the city centre. Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, and the second largest urban slum in Africa...

 and Mathare

Mathare

Mathare is a collection of slums in Nairobi, Kenya with a population of approximately 500,000 people; the population of Mathare Valley alone, the oldest of the slums that make up Mathare, is 180,000 people...

.
The population of the slum exceeds 100,000.
Kwa Njenga Primary School exists there. The Medical Missionary of Mary has a hospital there.
There have been cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

 deaths in 2009. Mukuru kwa Njenga has Anglican churches. Residents of the slum have been in fear of a mass eviction of more than 50,000 persons in 2002.