The Solar Lamps for University Students in Dadaab campaign aims to provide solar-powered desk lamps to refugee and local students
in Dadaab, Kenya who attend tuition-free
post-secondary education programs offered for the first time ever in Northeastern
Kenya through the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) project.
**Contributors who wish to receive a receipt for their tax-deductible donation should include their full name and mailing address when making their contribution.
The Borderless Higher Education for
Refugees (BHER) Project provides educational programs in one of the largest
refugee camps of the world, Dadaab, Kenya. The BHER project also creates space
for local Kenyan students in Dadaab to benefit from these programs. Completion
of these programs keeps women and men from precarious forms of employment and
wins them internationally recognized credentials and marketable skills that
they can use to work in situ, to be
employed in Kenya, in their country of origin, or wherever they resettle.
A significant barrier identified by BHER
students to completing their coursework is the inability to find adequate
lighting during the evening. For many students, the ability to access study
space with electricity and adequate lighting is often limited outside of class
time. The restrictions for women students are often greater because of responsibilities
that require them to be home in the evenings and also because of safety
concerns faced by women when going out after dark.
A simple solution with a broad impact,
solar-powered
lamps give students the freedom to complete coursework at home and enable them
to succeed in their university programs. However, the cost of lamps puts
this much-needed resource out of reach for students, who already face
livelihood challenges under the constraining conditions in the refugee camp and
locally. While students in the refugee
camps have access to meager “incentive” wages (approximately
102 CND/month for highly paid refugees), these earnings are barely enough to
support themselves and their families. Students from
local communities may be paid at a slightly better rate (around 200 CND/month),
though this amount is still highly restrictive. For
both refugee and local students, purchasing a
solar lamp would mean taking away from the limited household
incomes that barely meet people’s basic standards of living.
Working
with d.light, an international social
enterprise that specializes in solar light and power products, the BHER project
will use funds raised through this campaign to secure at-cost solar-powered
lamps for students in the BHER program.
Help bring light to Dadaab's refugee and local university students' lives, studies, and futures by contributing today.
Over the next 4 years, The BHER project will serve approximately 800 refugee students. For a contribution of about $42 CAD, you will provide one student with a solar-powered lamp that will help them through the duration of their studies. This means that for every $1,000 CAD raised, 23 students will be provided with a resource that will give them the freedom to do coursework at home during the evening. For many refugee and local students - particularly women - your contribution can make the difference that enables them to complete their education.
Donations of any amount will go a long way to helping refugee and local students in need. Even small contributions, when given by many supporters, can make a huge difference in people's lives.