Introduction During the internship at Mukuru Talent Development, I spent most of the time in a Lunga Lunga village within the Mukuru Kwa Reuben slums where the headquarters of my community based organization were established. Consequently I had a wonderful opportunity to learn how the community of Lunga Lunga dwellers operates in the slum. As a law student I found fascinating how everything in the slum functions illegally. No wonder, it is in the end an informal settlement and the community already gave up relying on government policies a long time ago. Taking advantage of being a rather small and closely tight community, the slum dwellers established their own informal laws and system of justice which contrary to the official policies is considered efficient, consistent and just. In this reflection, it will be explained how the inhabitants of Lunga Lunga regard their government, police and other state authorities and subsequently how do they deal with the lack of trust in these institutions. Furthermore, it will be shown how this attitude of the local people influences their approach to the slum upgrading project. The Abandoned Children The civil society in Kenya is known for being very active, especially in comparison with other East African countries. As one Lunga Lunga inhabitant explained to me: “We learned that we cannot rely on our government to support us. If we want something, it is us who have to achieve it independently of our institutions.” In fact, some of the local people have almost a phobia from government institutions. Having chai in one of the hotels in the slum, I learned in a conversation with the commander that when his house burned, he was only happy that he had his personal documents with him at that time outside of the house. As he shared with me: “Everything that I lost in the fire can be recovered. But approaching the government institutions to have my documents re-issued would be worse than the fire itself.” These are strong words, but they mirror well the alienated and untrustworthy relationship many of the local