Kibera community youth programme
The stinking Kibera slum in Nairobi has a reputation for spawning criminals, inter-ethnic violence and misery – not for breeding entrepreneurs and philanthropists. Almost all of Kenya’s 42 tribes are represented here among the one million illegal squatters who live hunched up in densely packed one-room shacks, without bathrooms!
The lucky ones share communal toilets – holes in the ground that empty straight into open ditches where the human waste sits and festers until it rains. Few residents have electricity. Those that do have often created their own supply. Many sometimes unofficially connect their wires into a neighbours’ house to use their electricity. With the plethora of wires snaking in and out of makeshift connections, it can be a dangerous business. Too often, fires sweep through the closely-packed dwellings, killing and maiming.
It’s not a place where you would expect to find a thriving small business. But the young men and women of the Kibera Community Youth Programme (KCYP) have spotted a gap in the market; they are producing solar power for radios, lights and mobile phones.
The small team work in a ramshackle building on the edge of the slum, making small power packs from fragments of solar panels. The panels are wired up so they can be attached to portable radios – precluding the need to rely on expensive disposable batteries – or to mobile phones for recharging, or even portable lights and torches.
The completed panels are cheap to buy, free to run and need no maintenance. This literally empowers poor slum dwellers. They can use their phones to keep in contact with family, friends and prospective employers and use their radios to keep up with the news or listen to health-education broadcasts.
It’s not a place where you would expect to find a thriving small business. But the young men and women of the Kibera Community Youth Programme (KCYP) have spotted a gap in the market; they are producing solar power for radios, lights and mobile phones.
The small team work in a ramshackle building on the edge of the slum, making small power packs from fragments of solar panels. The panels are wired up so they can be attached to portable radios – precluding the need to rely on expensive disposable batteries – or to mobile phones for recharging, or even portable lights and torches.
The completed panels are cheap to buy, free to run and need no maintenance. This literally empowers poor slum dwellers. They can use their phones to keep in contact with family, friends and prospective employers and use their radios to keep up with the news or listen to health-education broadcasts.
Inspiration from Wales
The solar project makes enough money to pay for itself, fund other projects run by KCYP and give the project members a living wage. The young men and women who came up with the idea – the eldest is only 24 – are all products of the Kibera slum. One of the organisers, Robert Kheyi, said: ‘We left school with nothing – no qualifications and no future apart from irregular manual work. ‘We wanted to do something for ourselves and our community and came up with the youth programme.
‘We got the idea for the solar project from a man from Wales who visited us. He told us how to get cheap, small solar panels and how to wire them up. We took it on and we do the marketing.'
‘We got the idea for the solar project from a man from Wales who visited us. He told us how to get cheap, small solar panels and how to wire them up. We took it on and we do the marketing.'
‘Our only problem is that now we can’t make them fast enough’
Robert and his colleagues have a certainty about the value of what they do and the success they know they will eventually share. They are looking for suppliers who can sell them parts in bulk at cheaper prices. And they plan to take their products beyond Kibera to rural communities across Kenya – and even into Sudan, Senegal, Ghana, Uganda and elsewhere.
‘Solar power is safe, it’s affordable and it’s environmentally friendly,’ says Robert. ‘We are working on a panel that will charge up a 12-volt battery so that people can run computers and TVs. It takes a day to charge up a car battery. If we can perfect this, we will change people’s lives.’
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‘Solar power is safe, it’s affordable and it’s environmentally friendly,’ says Robert. ‘We are working on a panel that will charge up a 12-volt battery so that people can run computers and TVs. It takes a day to charge up a car battery. If we can perfect this, we will change people’s lives.’
Join the climate change campaign
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