Try to figure out a scenario where you are routinely forced to be indoors before nightfall because your neighbourhood isn’t lit and there is no socio-economic activity taking place outside. This can be quite frustrating, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, thousands of households in informal settlements across Kenya have had to endure this kind of infuriating reality for many decades.
Darkness meant that residents have to rush back home before nightfall while businesses also have to shut down early for security reasons. Coupled with poor infrastructure and crowded housing, crimes such as mugging, house break-ins and rape have been common as crooks took advantage of the darkness to pounce on their victims.
Demand for rental space also suffered in such non-lit neighbourhoods because tenants keep away for fear of their safety. Luckily, the situation is gradually improving across many informal settlements in the country thanks to various initiatives to provide lighting.
One such initiative is by the Kenya Informal Settlement Improvement Project (KISIP) whose infrastructure upgrading program– which includes the installation of high mast lighting– has particularly proved a game-changer for people in such settlements.
Today, businesses in areas such as Kayole Soweto in Nairobi, Obunga in Kisumu and Kasarani in Naivasha operate for longer hours and customers make purchases at their convenience as late as 11 pm or even midnight. For example, female residents of informal settlements such as Kamukunji in Eldoret where the high mast lightings have been installed are particularly grateful because the risk of sexual assault has reduced and as a result, women traders are now able to leave their houses and source for food and supplies from the fresh market as early as 5 am.
Children in Obunga in Kisumu have also taken advantage of the high mast light to either; do their homework or engage in sports in play fields well-lit by the floodlights. Access to public service in institutions such as health centres, police posts and chief camps located near the lit-up areas has also been enhanced even at night as has security.
For Milimani High School in Kericho, the flood lights illuminate wider areas of the school thus providing a great sense of security for the students and teaching fraternity.
More investors are also now either expanding housing facilities in the informal settlements or putting up new ones on improved demand by would-be tenants who are calmed by improved security due to the installation of high mast lights. This could contribute to the realization of the Government’s Big 4 Agenda targets on affordable housing. Households in informal settlements have also discarded harmful sources of lighting such as kerosene tin lamps, which contributed to respiratory illness and complications due to pollution.
So far, the benefits of these high mast lights are overwhelming so much that many counties have adopted the concept to light up informal settlements and public spaces such as markets.
Albeit bills associated with the same are alarming, county governments have already started undertaking these financial and technical obligations. For instance, counties could exploit the advertising opportunities provided on the lighting masts to help offset part of the power bills. The light masts remain bare despite a monthly revenue potential of Sh50,000 per mast. This amount is sufficient to keep the lights on throughout the month. Another alternative is solar panels, which despite the substantial initial installation costs, portends a myriad of benefits including reduced monthly bills, low maintenance costs and are friendly to the environment. The counties could also partner with the national government for cheaper power supplies to run the high masts. Generation of power from cheaper sources such as wind and geothermal has increased and the benefits could be extended to the high mast lighting initiative that immensely benefited the masses. Counties should lobby utility firm Kenya Power and state agencies involved in security and trade to supply bigger capacity transformers to informal settlements.
Besides the power bills, the focus must also stay on fighting the vandalism of the light masts. Several components such as power meter boxes are an easy target for vandals and these could be protected through the installation of cages. But more importantly, sensitization of communities on the protection of the light masts would be critical. Inculcating community ownership of the lighting initiative is an effective way of flushing out vandals because the benefits of sufficient lighting cannot be gainsaid.
