On Monday, 21 October 2019, the NamPower Foundation handed over 150 solar lights to the Legal Assistance Centre in Windhoek. The LAC will donate the solar lights to 150 pupils in the Zambezi region as part of the LAC’s advocacy programme on environmental and wildlife protection in the Zambezi region.
Since August, the LAC is providing 3-day-trainings (each) on climate change and adaptation measures, the ecosystem, biodiversity, wildlife crime and resource management to ten selected schools in the Zambezi Region.
The programme will continue in 2020, deepening and extending the scope of the project by continuing to work with selected schools while adding more schools to the programme. The programme received a new impulse in October, when the movie “Baxu and the Giants, commissioned by the LAC, was incorporated in the training sessions.
Part of the educational topics include the sustainable usage of electricity. Yet, in Zambezi, the region with the poorest population and weakest infrastructure, 86% of households rely on wood for cooking, according to 2015 statistics.
In addition, only 14% in the Zambezi region have access to electricity for cooking, while 32% have access to electricity for lightning. As a result, 62% of the people in the region use candles for lighting, resulting in the purchase of expensive candles, which are ecological unsustainable and risky. Solar lanterns provide a cost-effective and ecological alternative to the current situation. The solar lights donated by the NamPower Foundation will increase the learning capacity of the learners in the Zambezi Region.
At the handing over, Hans-Christian Mahnke from the LAC highlighted: “We want to give the pupils (and their parents) not abstract solutions to issues arising from climate change and wildlife crime, but rather pragmatic teaching and learning tools, which are relevant to them, and also, with the ability to actually change their behaviour in various areas.
The children will benefit directly by having one solar lantern per household, enabling them to study at home at night, and also enabling them and others to believe and invest in climate change adaptation measures.”
The data are provided in: Detlef von Oertzen (2015): REEE – powering Namibia, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Windhoek, p 35ff.