Clean energy for the poorest of Kenya

Oddly enough, the electricity is still a luxury for many Africans. A luxury that a group of youths from Kibera, one of the most miserable shantytowns of Africa, wants to make available to all. Sarah breast Beginning, the famous African grandmother of U.S. President, Barack Obama.

Robert and his friends realized one day that they were sick of being poor. Their twenties, had no profession or property and tired of seeing that, despite the many NGOs that are flooding the black continent, the reality around them remained the same as always: abject poverty, the lack of any infrastructure and basic service.

Eight years after that sharing, Robert Kheyi-29-year-leads with his friends a youth organization in Kibera, Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, which aims to get solar power, clean, quality, people under the planet's resources.
Obama's grandmother

The first to receive the benefits of supply through solar panels was the grandmother of President Obama, who gave 80 years for the first time a switch. It was in August last year, when the army of volunteers arrived in Kibera Kogelo-Obama African people near Lake Victoria to install eight large solar panels on the roof of the illustrious neighbor, which, together with the school principal the light zone clean-enjoy.

The flagship product created and devised by the 'Program for youth in Kibera "is a portable lamp light range of up to six hours. It is a small tool, easy to use and durable. His only problem: price. "We sell the unit to 3,500 shillings, a still very high cost to the purchasing power of the people of Kibera," laments Robert Kheyi, who is preparing to solve the difficulty by introducing an unprecedented small installment payment system, which is very rare in Africa.

"We started taking all this in common: we left school, but not for lack of talent. Some had no money to pay school fees, others were orphaned and had to feed and take care of his brothers," says Robert Kheyi from the small and humble workshop now become an assembly plant sunlamps.
Free courses

"We wanted to organize, do something, but we refused to accept the help of NGOs or ask for charity. It was there where he was born the idea to start with solar energy, an investment for the future". Investment in the future no doubt few can imagine how helpful it is in poor and rural Africa. Today, nearly a decade later, Robert Kheyi get in his humble office made of tin and no running water. But with clean energy.


Today, the organization provides training to young people like the founders, were eager and few resources. "A six-month course in solar energy easily cost $ 1,500 [$ 1,000]. Here we give free." For now, young people are in training, but very soon these pioneers who will lead by example.

Besides being a social and innovative, sunlamps workshop is a perfect solution in a world in need of remedies against the effects of climate change. In African cities kerosene is the main fuel for power generation. In rural areas of Africa, what replaced coal. In both cases, harmful to health and also for the environment. Work and effort that since 2005 have been recognized by various institutions promoting clean energy in South Africa, Switzerland and the UK, and shows that everything can be witty.