The Mwingi District in Kenya is at the Equator where sunlight cannot benefit for long hours.
About 60% of around 400,000 inhabitants of Mwingi, live on less than a dollar a day, by being one of the poorest areas in the whole country, receiving electricity does not seem to be possible in the next 50 years.
To have a relatively bright future in that district children have to get high education. Therefore they need light to be able to study.
In a district where both natural and financial conditions are against, Children of Mwingi have a limited future.
Objective
The objective is to provide 20 schools with a solar system within a period of three years, to lighten the future of children.
Lighten Their Future Project
Officials will have to close 100 primary schools and 20 secondary schools which are off the national electricity grid and not likely to get electricity for the next 50 years in the project area.
Mwingi district has a total of 360 primary schools, (each with an average of 600- 800 pupils, (approximately 252,000 pupils) and 53 secondary schools, each with an average of 300-400 students (approximately 21,200 students).
The education system in Kenya is structured in such a way that, pupils spent 8 years in primary school, 4 in secondary and another 4 at university.
Out of the 20,000 enrolled in standard within the project area at any one given year, 60% drop out before making it to class eight.
On the other hand, out of the +/- 2,000 or so admitted to form one, less than 50 students (2.5%) score grades good enough to get them admitted to local public universities. Over 90% of all these schools are situated in very remote areas, and may take the next 50 years or so, to get connected to the national grid, UNLESS, something drastic and innovative, as this initiative happens.
Rise Kenya Organization has selected 33 primary schools and 6 secondary schools to start with solar lighting.
Depending on the scale of the project the establishment of a solar lighting system cost circa 1,500 Euro per school.
