Meet Rose, a 12 year old orphaned student who lives with Mama Lucy Odipo at the Little Bees School in Starehe slum, Nairobi, Kenya. Rose talks to Lifeline Energy’s CEO Kristine Pearson about using kerosene and its tragic consequences.
Tackling Energy Poverty
Lifeline Energy Blog / lifelights
All posts tagged by lifelights
Lifelight for Kenyan Student RoseJune 30, 2010
The Freeplay Foundation is now known as Lifeline EnergyApril 8, 2010
We are delighted to announce that from today our new name is Lifeline Energy.
Operating as Freeplay Foundation has served us well for the past 11 years, however, we feel that our new name better reflects our wider mission to tackle energy poverty head-on for the poorest and most vulnerable.
In addition to including Lifeline radios and Lifelights in projects and programmes, in the near future Lifeline Energy will launch a brand new, revolutionary communications tool that we believe will have a profound impact on education and information access in the developing world. We will send you more news about this soon.
We will continue to focus our research on the impact of dangerous kerosene, firewood and candles, and the harmful effects these have on vulnerable women and children. This better equips us to create clean energy products and to advocate approaches that reduce their use and improve quality of life.
Lifeline Energy remains a 501 (c)(3) registered charity in the USA, a registered charity in the UK and is a Section 18A and 21 non-profit in South Africa. Under our new name, Lifeline Energy will retain all current board members as well as our ambassadors: Academy Award winning actor Tom Hanks in America; noted humanitarian Terry Waite in Europe; Mount Everest and South Pole mountaineer Sibusiso Vilane in Africa.
Please visit our redesigned website and learn more about Lifeline Energy; www.lifelineenergy.org
All email addresses that were formerly @freeplayfoundation.org will now be @lifelineenergy.org.
March 25, 2010
A granny enjoys reading a Bible with her new Lifelight
Written by Kristine Pearson
I remember in 1995 when the first tin shacks went up in the Joe Slovo informal settlement not far from what is now Johannesburg University (formerly Rand Afrikaans University). It made headlines as local residents fought against a ‘squatter camp’ going up in the empty field in their neighbourhood. Fifteen years and 20,000 residents later, Joe Slovo remains unelectrified with limited services, although it does have running tap water and toilets.
We brightened the lives of 40 mainly granny-headed families who use candles or paraffin (kerosene) wick lamps for lighting with Lifelights. They all feel nervous and stressed about the use of candles and paraffin because of how easily they can tip over and start fires. The cramped makeshift houses are tight next to one another like rabbit warren, with very narrow walkways. The walkways in most parts are covered by carpet under-felt. This is the first time I’ve seen this in an informal settlement. Fires are common resulting in dire consequences, sweeping through the settlement at terrifying speed.
Project Manager Chhavi Sharma with Assistant Research Aaliya Sadruddin
Our partner organisation, Children of Fire, which does heroic work with victims of fire, identified the beneficiary families and we conducted a training session at a school outside Joe Slovo’s perimeter. Accompanied by our project manager, Chhavi Sharma and intern researcher Aalyia Sadruddin, after the distribution we visited with a couple of the grannies in their homes.
This is is 62-year-old granny and former domestic worker, Eveline, who is one of Joe Slovos residents who lives in the centre of the settlement. She’s seen many fires over the years and was very pleased to have a Lifelight.
March 15, 2010
We wanted to let you know about an exciting opportunity that we are participating in, through GlobalGiving. When a donation is made to any of our projects on Tuesday 16th March 2010, GlobalGiving will be match your gift by 30% !
And if we raise the most money or get the most donations, we will be eligible for bonus prize.
We need to act fast! By selecting one of our projects, such as Haiti Humanitarian Radio Relief Fund your donation will ensure Haitian children will quickly get back on an educational track with our wind-up and solar-powered Lifeline radios.
Please help us make the most of it of this opportunity – it’s an easy way to get more impact from your donation dollars right now !
March 5, 2010
Written by Kristine Pearson
Location: Near Nyamata town, Rwanda
For nearly three years, I’ve been focusing on understanding the use of firewood, kerosene and candles by vulnerable children and women in sub-Saharan Africa. I often write and speak about how kerosene, outside South Africa, is largely unregulated in sub-Saharan Africa and of its dangers. The havoc it wreaks on people’s lives in their quest to have light after dark is not widely reported.
This week my colleague, Phil Goodwin, and I distributed Lifelights to child-heads of households between the ages of 13 and 20 and asked them my usual list of questions. But I heard something that I have never heard before. Alarmingly, they are buying diesel fuel instead of kerosene or mixing the two together because it is cheaper. Diesel is even more toxic and flammable than kerosene and this new development is very worrying. The children told us that they dig in neighbour’s fields to earn money, and the three things that they buy are lighting fuel (kerosene or diesel) by the tablespoon, salt and soap. When they have no money, they use firewood for light.
Each of the 12 children were thrilled to receive their light, saying that this light would free them from the dangers of liquid fuel and give them safe light in which cook, wash, study and walk after dark. Being able to make their bed and to see bugs, snakes or rats before getting into it, as they generally sleep on the ground, gave them comfort and they broke out into spontaneous applause.
