Lights for Namibian Children

We are humbled and proud to in­form you that the Em­bassy of the King­dom of The Neth­er­lands wishes to make a mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion to the Nam­i­bi­an people’s prosper­ity, with something maybe as simple as hav­ing ac­cess to safe light and power.
Ac­cord­ing to Buzzfeed, “Nam­i­bia is without any doubt one of the world’s most scen­ic­ally mag­ni­fi­cent coun­tries.” But as with every beau­ti­ful story, there are chapters that por­tray the con­front­ing real­ity of every­day life in Nam­i­bia.

Res­ults from the NHIES (Nam­i­bia House­hold In­come and Ex­pendit­ure Sur­vey) 2009/2010, show­cased that only 42% of Nam­i­bi­an house­holds used elec­tri­city for light­ing and 38% re­lied on candles for light­ing at home. Prob­lem is, in­door pol­lu­tion from ker­osene fuel (of­ten used for light) kills more people than AIDS and Mal­aria com­bined. And every day thou­sands are burned and dis­figured by ker­osene/candle fire.

Un­der these con­di­tions a product like the WakaWaka Power+ of­fers an easy, prac­tic­al and par­tic­u­larly flex­ible solu­tion to provide ac­cess to light­ing and all the ad­ded chances it en­tails, such as so­cial in­ter­ac­tion, stud­ies, read­ing, house chores or simply be­ing able to move about safely at night or early morn­ing.

“250 chil­dren liv­ing in the slum ‘Wind­hoek’ got a sol­ar-powered lamp from WakaWaka.” — Min­istry of for­eign af­fairs The Neth­er­lands

Dur­ing a vis­it of H.E. Titia van den As­sum to the Hon­our­able Deputy Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions and Co­oper­a­tion Netumbo Nandi-Ndait­wah in Feb­ru­ary 2016, two WakaWaka Power+ devices were handed over. This res­ul­ted in a re­quest by the Min­is­ter to in­vest­ig­ate the feas­ib­il­ity of im­port­ing and rolling out the WakaWaka+ for Nam­i­bi­an school chil­dren in off-grid areas.

The Dutch Em­bassy in Nam­i­bia is proud to be a co-spon­sor of the WakaWaka ini­ti­at­ive in the roll-out of this product with­in Nam­i­bia. Cur­rently, 250 Nam­i­bi­an chil­dren re­ceived a WakaWaka Power +, which en­ables them to do their home­work once the sun is down. As men­tioned, this is a pi­lot pro­ject and we are look­ing for­ward to see­ing the first res­ults.

“Such a great in­ven­tion. Sun shines 4ever in #Wind­hoek for these kids.” — Mar­isa Ger­ards, NL am­bas­sad­or SA ‏