In Kenya: the impacts of last year's unrest

For the last month I've been working for our programme out here. The day I arrived was the day before the anniversary of the political violence that occurred during the elections last year. There was some tension in the air but in the end things were fine and nothing- at least in Nakuru- happened, thankfully. A one minutes silence was observed throughout the country to commemorate those that lost their lives and livelihoods throughout Kenya. While spending a lot of time in both Nairobi and Nakuru it was easy to spot these pockets of internally displaced people (IDPs).

In Nakuru, across from our flat, and adjacent to the local Ministry of Housing, there were about 100 people living in squalor. Two weeks before I arrived they were living in front of the Ministry, hoping to receive housing. These people were displaced further still, when a bulldozer flatten their make-shift housing.

The violence last year affected SolarAid too. One of our first successful entrepreneurs, Fred Migai, suffered from the rioting and violence that occurred in Nairobi. His solar factory- full of products and machinery- was burnt down. This was a great shame since he had at one point employed 45 salesmen and 15 manufacturers. The solar products they were producing reached many remote areas throughout Kenya, and were one of a kind.

On receiving a grant from Barclays last year, SolarAid was luckily able to take Fred into its new programme here in Nakuru. Both Fred and his team of manufacturers are now able to build solar products once again but this time under our new franchise model, which has had a lot of success and promises to disseminate more solar products to a much wider audience.

More from me soon!
Miguel

LEFT: FRED MIGAI, SOLARAID'S NEW DIRECTOR OF MANUFACTURING

ABOVE: Miguel with some of Sunnymoney's manufacturers. Nakuru, Kenya

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