I started interning at Lifeline Energy in May, after completing my Masters at SOAS. Having grown up in Africa and as the son of parents working in development, I thought that I had a pretty good grasp of what to expect and the issues I’d be working with, however, my time at Lifeline Energy has taught me that there is still so much I don’t know!
Before working at Lifeline Energy I was quite ignorant about the idea of energy poverty and viewed problems such as kerosene as a necessary evil on a continent that has no immediate solution to energy issues. I hadn’t realized the extent of energy poverty and how deeply it can affect issues such as health. I now know that solutions do exist, and I think the challenge lies in changing perceptions about how people affected by energy poverty view their lives. This can be done through providing them with sustainable access to information and education.
Another thing I’ve learnt at Lifeline Energy is how the simplicity of radio or light does so much more than what you would expect. It’s not just about being able to have on-demand access to information, or a light to study in the dark. It’s about the opportunity that these simple, clean solutions provide to improve people’s prospects and make better, more informed decisions about their daily lives. There is no doubt that access to clean, safe, sustainable energy should be a basic human right, and I think this is an urgent issue that Lifeline Energy is championing.
Africa is and should be for Africans, and it is them who should be making the decisions to drive them forward. I think the best thing we can do, and what Lifeline Energy does, is give them the tools and a platform for them to make better decisions, together, about their future.
I’ve always wanted to work with and for African countries, and Lifeline Energy has made me even more enthusiastic about this prospect.
I’ve been interning at Lifeline Energy for three months and so far it’s been an incredible learning experience. I’ve learned more about how development occurs on the ground in two months than I did in a year of graduate school. When I first started, I knew that much of sub-Saharan Africa was off the grid, but I hadn’t conceptualized what this meant for daily lives. For example, I didn’t realize that millions are still lighting their homes and fueling their stoves with kerosene. Kristine’s blog really highlighted the dangers of kerosene for me as well. Some of the statistics about energy poverty are staggering. The fact that some people are forced to spend 40 to 60 percent of their income on kerosene makes it impossible to break the cycle of poverty. The gender dimensions of energy poverty are also sobering, as is women’s lack of access to information in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, both of which Lifeline Energy addresses.
I was struck by how much the lives of young women were changed simply by having access to solar lights. Access to radio also has a transformative effect on the lives of women and girls. In one report I read, it was revealed that after forming listening groups, Somali women in Kenya’s Dadaab camps began talking about important issues like FGM and gender-based violence, which is the first step to stopping both practices. In fact, some women reported that they had decided not to submit their daughters to FGM because of information they received through the radio broadcasts. It hadn’t occurred to me that something as simple as a radio or a light could change people’s lives so much. It definitely hadn’t occurred to me that my own life would be transformed in the course of three months, but it has.
The team here at Lifeline Energy is amazing. I’ve learned a great deal from each one of them and I would like to thank them for making my time here at Lifeline Energy enjoyable.
Project manager Chhavi Sharma distributes lights to students in Nairobi slum
Little Bees School is run by Mama Lucy Odipo in Starehe, a densely populated section of Nairobi’s Mathare Valley slum. Lifeline Energy has been working there for more than three years. Kristine Pearson, Lifeline Energy’s CEO, and I were there to distribute solar-powered and wind-up Lifelights.
When questioned about their study habits, they told us that they usually read by the poor flame of a candle or koroboi, the traditional kerosene lamp made from tin cans. Even then, their use is economised and carefully budgeted, so that the kerosene can be made to last as many days as possible. All members of the household have to share it, as there is no electricity in the area.
The children use the substitutes for electricity, i.e. the candle or koroboi, to study and do their homework in the evenings, but cannot do so for more than 20-30 minutes at a stretch, as the smoke greatly irritates their eyes and often makes them spit up black soot, they went on to explain.
The hazardous and undesirable effects of candles and kerosene on indoor air quality, which result in health – especially respiratory – issues and accidents, such as burns and fires, is well documented. These children, some as young as 12 years old, confront these problems on a daily basis, since they also use the candles and korobois to go to the communal toilets and assist their mothers with household chores, like preparing the dinner, washing the utensils and making the beds, after dark.
The children told us that the lights will enable them to study for one or two hours every night, giving them enough time to complete their homework. They believe ti will improve their academic performance in school over time. This was extremely important to them, as some of them are gearing up for national exams at the end of this year, which will gain them entry into secondary schools. In addition, the lights will help them feel safer by making it easy for them to spot thieves lurking in the alleyways and snakes and scorpions, when they walk to the toilets in the dark. Household size averages five in Starehe and all will now benefit.
The distribution of the lights was empowering for so many children and their families, and extremely moving for both Kristine and myself, as it gave them access to a practical tool that will help change their lives and brighten their future in more ways than one with immediate effect.
Access to information, light and basic energy in a humanitarian crisis can be just as essential as food, water, medical supplies and shelter.
Aerial shot of the 2000 Mozambique floods
For the past 12 years, Lifeline Energy has been involved in several major humanitarian emergencies – the Mozambique floods of 2000, the 2005 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Haiti earthquake, the Pakistan floods and now the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Natural disasters don’t discriminate between rich or poor, although the poor tend to suffer more since they own fewer assets and don’t have insurance. These five catastrophes alone have killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more than a hundred million people. In each instance we’ve provided either solar and wind-up radios or self-powering radios with lights to displaced populations working with local aid organisations – but only several weeks to months after the disaster.
Temporary Shelters in Haiti
When a humanitarian disaster has occurred, we’ve been contacted by other aid organisations, the UN, corporates wanting to help and even national governments all asking for our products right away. Lifeline Energy being a charity, can afford to hold only a small number of products as we procure them from our new product development and trading arm, Lifeline Technologies Trading, on as needed basis.
For years we’ve tried to persuade donors to fund a stockpile that would allow radios and lights to arrive as soon as possible and not weeks later when lives may have been lost. There are aid depots in Dubai, Panama, Italy, Hong Kong and other locations around the world, which make dispatching goods a fairly straightforward process.
In an emergency, I believe that dependable radios or lights that wind-up are essential. The sun may shine, but in a crisis, a robust winding system has proven time and again to be the most reliable power source. Offering displaced populations devices dependent on costly disposable batteries or solar power only is unsustainable. People want and need information on-demand in a disaster – from where and when aid will be distributed, to how to find/locate missing loved ones and weather reports. One also cannot underestimate the psychosocial support that music provides. In Japan, people also want trusted updates on the status of the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant and radiation levels on a regular basis.
Having dependable light is similarly important for safety and security at night, especially for women, children and the elderly. If cellular networks are operating, then a way to power cell phones is just as important.
For the Japan earthquake and tsunami, between the generosity of GlobalGiving’s donors and Oxfam Japan, we have 15,000 wind-up and solar Polaris radio-light-cell phone chargers due for delivery in Japan in early April. These are destined for mainly the elderly in the Tohuku Kanto region. Japan utilises unique frequencies and radios need to be manufactured for this market specifically.
One of the reasons that we created our new MP3 enabled Lifeplayer is for emergencies. It can provide displaced populations with up to 64GB of educational and informational access anytime, anywhere to anyone. Children can be organised immediately around lessons in their own language. Given its excellent sound quality, the Lifeplayer easily accommodates 60 listeners. Radio broadcasts can be recorded for listening later and people can record their own stories of their survival for generations to come.
As a small agency, we cannot afford to create or hold stockpiles, yet it’s crucial that our products are immediately ready to respond to the next humanitarian catastrophe. Let us never be accused of missing an opportunity to help.
Lifeline Energy stands ready to work with others around the world to share our conviction to increase our disaster preparedness for the next humanitarian emergency wherever that may be.
Women and men who devote their lives to making a difference for others are publicly honored as ‘heroes’ by CNN, Time magazine, Skoll Foundation and others. I believe that the real heroes are those unsung, unrecognized people living in the communities they serve and who are often live in poverty themselves.
One such hero was 31-year old Victor Ochieng. Victor had worked his way up from security guard to headmaster of Little Bees, a school built beside a refuse dump in Nairobi’s sprawling Mathare Valley slum.
In 2008 I was introduced to the much loved, irrepressible, larger than life, 60-year old Mama Lucy Odipo, a community organizer and founder of the Little Bees School. The school is situated in Starehe, a seven-hectare maze of rusty iron roofed shacks and shops, muddy alleyways and rocky streets. Mama Lucy received one of our radios through a women’s group and she invited me to visit the school.
A colleague and I arrived to the parking area next to the sign (land) ‘grabbers will face necessary action’. We walked down a slope criss-crossing the muddy, smelly stream of sudsy wash water mixed with raw sewage, which flowed into a narrow tributary of the brown Nairobi River that was choked with garbage. We turned right into an unmarked dark passage just wide enough for two people and heard the sound of children laughing. It was recess.
“Welcome to Little Bees, my name is Victor.” A tall, thin man wearing khaki trousers and tennis shoes extended his hand to me with a smile. He told me that he was the head of security and proudly showed me around. Victor escorted me to the small playground, packed with children playing on equipment that included a rickety jungle gym, an upside down wheelbarrow and a seesaw.
On one side of the playground were sheet metal, dirt floored, sand flea infested, makeshift classrooms filled with second-hand desks. Each classroom only had one small window. On the other side were two unpainted brick classrooms. I could see that they were building a second floor with plastic tarp walls. The children shimmied up and down a rough-hewn ladder as if it were stairs with a railing. It made me nervous, but no one else seemed to be. The toilets were overflowed, as evidently the municipality had not emptied them. Little Bees would be condemned in America or Europe.
Nonetheless, the 20 orphans taken in by Mama Lucy, some of whom are disabled, and the more than 180 day students, were as playful and full of life as any child in an upmarket school. They crowded around me and welcomed me with a song. Their red and blue uniforms with white shirts were patched and mended hand-me-downs, most of which did not fit. Every day the children ate a hot meal prepared by volunteer mothers from the neighborhood cooked in a big iron cauldron over a wood fire. Although hugely under-resourced, the children were loved, fed and thriving. Victor adored the children and they clearly loved him.
Primary education is free in Kenya. There is an acute shortage of schools in slums. Non-formal schools like Little Bees spring up to provide an education offered by volunteer teachers, who may not have a teaching qualification. Victor told me how much they appreciated listening to the school lessons broadcast by the Kenya Institute of Education on our radio, especially for subjects like science and maths.
A few months later, I returned to Little Bees and Victor greeted me like a long lost friend, telling me that he’s ‘moved up’ to librarian and head of procurement. I had a Tom Hanks Day t-shirt with me given to Lifeline Energy by Kevin Turk, an American who raises funds for us each year through his International Tom Hanks Day fundraising event. It was too big for the children, so I gave it to Victor.
As I was taking some video, Victor reappeared in his new t-shirt and I casually asked him if he knew whom Tom Hanks was? He thought for a minute and said the he did not. I asked him to guess. Here’s the sweet video.
Over the next few visits, ‘Tommy Honks’ as Victor called him became an inside joke between us and we always laughed about it.
Last year in May, before the World Cup, I gave Victor a Vuvuzela in the colors of the South African flag. It was the first one that anyone had seen (other than in a newspaper) and Victor swiftly became the Pied Piper of Starehe. As he blew it and the children followed him around the school and into the street. He was so proud of his new ‘trumpet’ and he loved entertaining the community.
Every time I’ve been in Nairobi, probably nine times in the past three years, I have visited Little Bees. Each time Victor had been promoted – from security, to procurement, to librarian to social studies teacher, to deputy headmaster. Victor’s life was the school. With each visit Victor proudly showed off his latest renovation. On my last visit he was being groomed to take over as headmaster, enabling Mama Lucy to slow down.
I emailed Mama Lucy in January to tell her I was coming to visit. She wrote me back and told me that Victor had been murdered. He went out at night to buy medicine for his young son, Meso, when three thugs stabbed him in the stomach and snatched his cell phone. He died later that night in Kenyatta Hospital.
When I visited Little Bees twice in early February, sadness filled the air. I learned that Victor, who was survived by a young wife and two young children, was Mama Lucy’s fourth born son, out of 15 children. She had never mentioned that Victor was her child. She didn’t want me to think that he had been promoted out of nepotism, but instead because of his abilities, devotion and dedication to the children – the ‘little bees’.
Victor was buried on 12 February at his birthplace in Kisumu, in Kenya’s Western province at a funeral attended by hundreds of mourners.
How this slum school survives on so little is a miracle, but how it will survive without Victor I don’t know.
Living in a Nairobi slum where the conditions of life are unspeakable in 2011 – overcrowding, inadequate housing, the paucity of basic services, the lack of quality health care, combined with high levels of violence and insecurity – where a life is reduced to a cell phone – is nothing short of a human rights abuse.
Victor was robbed of his phone and paid for it with his life. And Mama Lucy was robbed of a son, the school was robbed of devoted role model and leader, and humanity was robbed of a hero.
Please let us know if you would like to make a contribution to the Little Bees School, which can either be done through Lifeline Energy or sent directly to Mama Lucy.
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the first TEDWomen conference in Washington, DC. Over the past two decades I’ve attended at many women-centered forums, but this was the most intense and wide-ranging, attracting around 600 overwhelmingly female delegates and 50 mainly female speakers. True, most speakers and participants were American, but we also heard the voices of inspirational women from around the world who are creating and making change. In our own way, we all participated in the conversation, and an incredible collective conversation it was.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking at TEDWomen Conference
The driving force behind this event, Pat Mitchell, I heard described last year as a woman’s woman. She’s also a feminist’s feminist who has been a mentor and role model to me and I suspect hundreds of other women over her celebrated career as a journalist.
We listened to women tell about their struggles and stories, like a mother-daughter doctor team from Somalia; National Geographic filmmakers Beverly and Derek Joubert; India’s top cop Kiran Bedi; the ‘man-box’ originator Tony Parker; environmental commentator Naomi Klein; patient capital pioneer Jacqueline Novogratz; Phyllis Rodriguez, who lost her son in the World Trade Center on September 11 and Aicha El-Wafi, mother of Zacarias Moussaoui, who is serving a life sentence without parole for conspiring to kill US citizens; surprise speaker Hilary Clinton; and concluding presenter, the irrepressible, extraordinary Eve Ensler.
Former Canadian politician, UN Ambassador and UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Steven Lewis, who I had never heard speak before, delivered an impassioned, blistering attack on the UN for failing women in terms of violence, rape, HIV/AIDS and other critical issues.
Wow, I thought, there’s another form of violence that no one’s talking about – it’s silent, visible as wispy black smoke and it stinks – it’s kerosene. Brought to us by oil companies, and the entire energy supply is virtually entirely men even down to the local kerosene sellers, this highly flammable fossil fuel is largely unregulated in the developing world. Kerosene or paraffin, as it’s also known, violates a woman’s eyes and lungs (made much worse if she is HIV positive or has TB). According to the World Bank, 780 million women and children inhale fumes equivalent to smoke from two packs of cigarettes a day. Two-thirds of lung cancer victims in developing countries are women.
When I was in Kenya’s Maasailand earlier in the year, I asked 90 rural kerosene-dependent women how many had suffered burns on themselves or their children and at least 20 women raised their hands. A few told stories of fires that cost them dearly, including the lives of a loved one. Some shared how their children had ingested kerosene believing it to be water.
If ‘fuel–based violence’ impacted men in the same way, something would have been done by now to ensure the poorest had some form of access to modern energy. But because women in Africa so often have only a small voice — or none at all — millions are suffering scratchy blood shot eyes, acute respiratory illness, asthma, chronic bronchitis and even pulmonary disease. It’s time we all step up and help poor women everywhere access clean energy.
So thank you, Stephen Lewis, for giving me an additional frame in which to encase the deadly consequences of kerosene usage. And thanks to all the wonderful people who staged such a powerful
two days and who gave so openly of themselves.
Dr Peter Friess, President of the Tech Museum of Innovation, with the Lifeline radio
By Kristine Pearson in Santa Clara
What a thrill to attend the 10th annual Tech Museum of Innovation Awards in Santa Clara on Saturday night. I was absolutely gob smacked that Peter Friess, the head of Silicon Valley’s Tech Museum walked on stage winding a Lifeline radio. Peter talked about the success of the Lifeline radio and Lifeline Energy (well, Freeplay Foundation, as we were known then) as the first winner of this award in 2001 and then excerpts of my acceptance speech was played. I had no idea they were going to do this. What a huge honour it was to be formally recognized by the Tech Museum again.
This was the first time the gala was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center and was the largest attendance ever at 1,800 guests. Many attendees were legends in Silicon Valley’s tech community. Everyone had come to find out who the five winners would be and also to hear Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan.
Queen Rania of Jordan with Applied Materials CEO Mike Splinter
Queen Rania, this years’ James C. Morgan Humanitarian Award honouree, spoke purposefully, passionately and eloquently about the importance of education. She encouraged everyone to ‘dream the undreamt’ and to ‘imagine the unimaginable’.
After dinner the award winners were announced from a field of three finalists laureates in five categories:
• Intel Environment Award – Peer Water Exchange, a project of Blue Planet Network – Worldwide
• BD Biosciences Economic Development Award – Alexis T. Belonio, Center for Rice Husk Energy Technology
• Microsoft Education Award – BBC World Service Trust, BBC Janala
• The Katherine M. Swanson Equality Award – A Single Drop for Safe Water
• Nokia Health Award – Venkatesh Mannar, Micronutrient Initiative
In this year’s education category I was delighted that one of our partners, the BBC World Service Trust, won for their English language mobile phone programming in Bangladesh.
Kristine Pearson accepting the first Tech Museum of Innovation Award in 2001
The Tech Awards have grown over the years into the world’s premiere awards for technology benefitting humanity and it will always be our honour to have been the very first winner. The iconic Lifeline radio – which is now retired and has been replaced by the Prime – is a featured display at the Tech Museum in Silicon Valley.
Gladys Kadogomoses’ big blue radio works perfectly after more than four years of constant use by her and her ladies’ listening group. She told me with great affection what it had meant to her – how she learned so much about health, nutrition and women’s rights; how she followed events during the frightening unrest in 2008 on the BBC; how she listened to the debates around the referendum; and most importantly about the programmes that told her about the medicines she needed to take and when to take them – because Gladys is HIV positive.
I first met gracious and friendly Gladys just after she had been diagnosed. She told me openly that she felt hopeless, ashamed and contemplated suicide because her deceased truck-driver husband, had left her nothing other than a disease. Then she joined the women’s self-help group Vumilia (perseverance in Swahili) and met weekly with other women in similar circumstances. With support, encouragement, and acceptance coupled with anti-retroviral drugs, she began to put her life back together.
In 2006 Gladys received a Lifeline radio along with 30 other positive women. She was the only one not a grandmother.
This was the first time since then that I had been back to Vumilia, which is in Kabras, just north of Kakamega in Western Kenya. On the weekend, I visited Gladys in her home to find out about her first night with her Lifelight. The day before she and 30 other women, participated in a Lifelight workshop.
Gladys beamed when she told me that her three children shared the light to study and for the first time she could see properly at night to read her Bible. Also for the first time, they used the pit latrine after dark, feeling safe from snakes and being able to see. She said, “without this light, at night we are otherwise forced to use a small white bucket.”
In addition, she spoke about the savings on paraffin that she would make. Gladys, like most women I’ve met who live in poverty, buy paraffin daily in small amounts. She spends anywhere from 20-40 Kenya shillings (25-50 US cents) per day averaging KS10,950 annually or a staggering $135. When the children study for exams she buys enough for light three lights. With the Lifelight, her savings will be significant.
Vumilia’s founder, Rose Ayuma Moon, who grew up in the Kabras area, established in 2004. Although she lives in Nairobi, she set up Vumilia because she saw how the skyrocketing HIV/AIDS pandemic was disrupting the lives of alarming numbers in her community and at that time the government was doing very little. Today Vumilia provides health and psycho-social support to 200 HIV positive women – all but two are grannies. In addition, Rose, who tirelessly and heroically divides her time between Kabras and Nairobi, also established the Vulmilia Home for Orphaned Girls, a residential facility for 22 girls aged 3-16 in 2006.
It is such a gratifying feeling to see something that you’ve nurtured for so long come to life. Last week we successfully launched a tool that we truly believe will be a game-changer in educational access for millions in the developing world. This is first device ever created for humanitarian use that allows content to be pre-recorded or loaded later (up to 64GB), can record live voice or radio broadcasts and even charges a cell phone. Called the Lifeplayer, it has been phenomenally well received by development specialists, partners and the media alike.
We spent three years researching and developing the Lifeplayer – determining the need; establishing what features were most desirable and practical; ensuring it could be reliably powered by a solar panel or wind-up energy; deciding how we could bring different technologies already in use in Africa and elsewhere together; and most importantly, how we would get the research and development funded. We were so blessed that Tom Hanks stepped in and not only contributed generously to the Lifeplayer’s development, but he asked his friends to help, too. We could not have asked for a more devoted supporter on every level. His tweet about the Lifeplayer was retweeted by thousands of others who spread the word virally.
There are a lot of people who have made the MP3-enabled Lifeplayer possible. Chief amongst them is Phil Goodwin, who heads our new product development and trading arm, Lifeline Technologies Trading Ltd. Phil is the design principal who has headed a multi-disciplinary team of model makers, industrial designers and software engineers, as well as the excellent group at our production facility in Asia. Due to component shortages brought about by the economic recession, we experienced some unforeseen delays, but finally the Lifeplayer is en route to being included in a host of important initiatives that will bring high quality information and educational content to those who otherwise would not have these learning opportunities.
I also want to thank the Lifeline Energy team and boards for their terrific support for their unwavering enthusiasm and belief in our vision.
New York has been the perfect place to launch the Lifeplayer, especially with the UN General Assembly meetings and the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The city is abuzz with excitement (and traffic snarls) and I’m honored to be making an input tomorrow at the CGI about women and the environment.
CEO of Lifeline Energy, Kristine Pearson, will be presenting at ThemThereand Thequietriot.com‘sevent on Thursday 25 March 2010.
The event will consist of four presentations and cover four of the seven key topics of thequietriot.com: food, materials, energy, industry, people, spaces and communities. Each presentation will showcase the innovation and business opportunities arising from energy and resource efficiency, renewable energy, emerging technologies as well as design.
Other speakers at the event will be from a cross section of industry members, small and large companies and designers.
The event takes place at the Walter Knoll, 42 Charterhouse Square, London EC1M 6EA
For more information about the event, please visit Thequietriot.com
grasp of what to expect and the issues I’d be working with, however, my time at Lifeline Energy has taught me that there is still so much I don’t know!
