[Field Report]After Project Ends,
Kenya’s Enkutoto District Begins to Operate Independently

Naturally, there are no power poles or electric wires to carry electricity in off-grid areas. If you go from the center of the city to the countryside, there will be no power poles or electric wires beyond that point, and you will get a real sense of the fact that there is no electricity going into this area. The Enkutoto district is also off-grid, so of course there were no power poles or electric wires to be found there. However, we developed a plan to take the surplus electricity from the small photovoltaic and energy storage system (PSS: power supply station) that we donated to an elementary school and sell that electricity to a nearby market. As a result, we succeeded in erecting power poles and extending electric wires from the elementary school to the market. Beginning in September of this year, the Enkutoto district was finally reborn as an electrified area. This area only covers a distance of about 100 meters. However, for the community, 100 meters is something they could only have dreamed of in the past.

In the local marketplace, new businesses are starting to emerge due to the introduction of electricity. At the local barbershop, electric hair clippers have been introduced, and electrification has allowed the shop to create a phone-charging service. This has also created a business where the shop sets up a television and allows customers to watch football games for a fee. Shops are now able to open early in the morning before sunrise or at night, extending their hours of operation. The expansion of these services has improved the living environment for villagers, and the marketplace has also led to increased income from new businesses. In addition, by selling electricity to the marketplace, the district will be able to recuperate maintenance costs for the donated PSS. This is the realization of a business model that truly benefits everyone involved.

In the Enkutoto district, in addition to an elementary school, we also donated a power supply station to a nearby clinic.
After receiving electricity, the clinic set up cold storage for vaccines, and this led to the vaccination of many villagers. Despite the impact of COVID-19, the number of vaccinated villagers increased by about 2.4 times in 2022 compared to 2020.
The electrification of the clinic and its numerous medical achievements have also prompted the government to start supporting the clinic with electrical equipment. The clinic has also received support in the form of a refrigerator and electric devices that can sterilize tweezers and scalpels used in medical care, leading to further improvements in services for patients. In fact, the number of women giving birth at night has increased by about 4.2 times since 2020, and the number of patients receiving care at night has exploded from 64 patients in 2018 to 3,092 in 2022. When asked about this, the nurse in charge of the clinic laughed and jokingly responded, saying he couldn’t get a good night’s rest because he was so busy dealing with patients throughout the evening.

An engineer managing the district’s power supply stations is confident that life in the community will see even more improvements through the use of electricity. “I think there are still many more ways for us to make effective use of electricity,” he said. He was one of the people that we trained when the project started so that the power supply stations could be maintained exclusively by villagers.
The district manager also said, “Electricity has helped us connect all sorts of things.” They have people gathering in places where there is electricity and light, and people are connecting with each other. Electricity has also led to new businesses, and it has given people the means to study at night, further improving academic performance in the area. This has created a virtuous cycle that is much appreciated by the district manager. He showed confidence in his belief that the community could grow even bigger if they all worked together.

An essential part of the community’s ability to operate independently is the presence of World Vision, an international NGO that worked with us as a partner organization to implement support programs locally. Their staff members live near communities that are far from convenient to live in, deeply embed themselves within communities, and work with villagers to develop their own communities. Without an NGO like this, our project could not have been successful.
We would like to offer them our sincere gratitude for working with us on this project.

We visited the site a year after the project ended, and we were able to confirm that the community is starting to independently sustain its operations and that the entire community is beginning to make every possible effort for the sake of its future.
The virtuous cycle that we were aiming to achieve has taken place and is about to swell to even larger proportions.
We would like to continue to support the realization of an inclusive society where everyone in this district can live a vibrant life.

The website for the international NGO, World Vision

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