It’s 7 p.m. and the sun has just set over the small community in Kenya where 11-year-old Dennis lives. As the blackness of the night sky overtakes the day, the sounds of chickens clucking and goats bleating fill the air. But inside Dennis’ house is a single, blazing light.
That light is a very big deal for Dennis and his family.
Dennis’ mother and her husband spend their lives caring for their family. They work on farms and in homes to provide for their children’s most basic needs. And they, like many other families in their community, could not afford electricity with their limited income.
No electricity meant that the children could not do their homework after 7 p.m. when the sky got dark. It meant that if they needed to stay up late studying, they had to use a kerosene lamp or light a large stick on fire. And kerosene cost nearly one-third of their mother's income each month.
“When using the kerosene lamp, I kept squinting while reading and would start the next day with aching eyes,” says Dennis’ older sister, Nduku.
Living without light affected the children’s grades, especially when they didn’t finish all their schoolwork before nightfall. But all that changed when the Compassion center where Dennis is registered implemented a solar light program. With the help of lots of generous people like you, the center provided solar-powered lights for the homes of all 298 children in their program, including Dennis’.
“This family was using fire,” says Josephine, the director at Dennis’ Compassion center. “They would go to bed by 7 p.m. since they didn’t have enough firewood for lighting. When they got solar lighting, they were so happy, especially the children, who could now study.”