• CBO chairperson Jacob Ogos says the organisation was formed in 2012 to help the community get connected to reliable and cheap electricity.
• The project comprises a 35kw mini-hydro turbine, 23kw from the solar and 35kw from a generator, giving a total of 93kW.
Image: Josiah Odanga
The roaring of River Nzoia, locally known as Nam Ndhoya, welcomes us to Hareka village in Magoya sublocation, Ugunja, in Siaya county on November 8.
We disembark from a boda boda at 1.45pm before our guide ushers us into the home of co-wives Leonida Areso and Monica Areso. The home is about 200 metres from the banks of the river.
We find an ailing Leonida, 66, in her sitting room. Her co-wife Monica and one other woman are keeping her company.
But we are here to speak to Monica, 63, who used a kerosene lamp (locally known as nyangile) for 45 years since she got married and settled in Hareka village.
Due to the prolonged dependence on it to provide light at night, both of her eyes developed cataracts.
“My left eyes started to irritate and became sore, then followed my right eye and it got to a point where I could not see a thing,” Monica recounts.
In 2019, Monica’s eyes were operated on during a free medical camp in the nearby Rambula trading centre.
Medics advised her to stop using nyangile.
She says around the time the doctor advised her to stop using the kerosene lamp, she was lucky to benefit from the Magoya Konjra Hareka CBO's mini-hydro and solar power project.
Since then, she says, the irritation in her eyes has stopped.
CBO chairperson Jacob Ogos says the organisation was formed in 2012 to help the community get connected to reliable and cheap electricity.
He says this followed increased incidences of tuberculosis and cataracts that were connected to the use of kerosene lamps.
Ogos says most of his fellow villagers who have attained secondary education and above use spectacles due to overreliance on kerosene lamps in their formative years.
The first house the CBO connected to power was in 2017 after receiving donor support and the help of Dr Orodi Odhiambo, a fellow villager and lecturer.
The donor, the United States Africa Development Foundation (USADF), gave financial support of $100,000 (about Sh12 million) and up to $86,000 (about Sh10 million) has so far been spent on the project.
The project was implemented by Power Africa and the University of Nairobi.
USADF also gave a further support of $5,000 (about Sh609,000) that went towards intake works, headrace, penstock and purchase and installation of a generator turbine unit.
The project comprises a 35kw mini-hydro turbine, 23kw from the solar and 35kw from a generator, giving a total of 93kW.
The CBO has installed 96 solar panels that tap energy from the sun.
They have done overhead distribution and installations in at least 125 households in the three villages of Magoya, Konjra and Hareka.
Residents and CBO stakeholders are offering free labour for the community-owned initiative.
“For a very long time Nam Dhoya was flowing downstream and it did not impact the lives of residents,” Ogos says.
“In the beginning, a section of the community opposed the project and refused to have it installed for them but now everyone wants it.”
Residents who spoke to the Star say their villages are now well-lit.
“Through the local project we have a reliable 24/7 power. In this village, there is nothing like power outages. Homes now look and smell like those in towns,” beneficiary Patrick Owino says.
The project has helped improve security and scare away hippos that have been a threat to human beings and crops.
Owino says the project has increased reading hours for schoolchildren.
Boniface Odero says incidents of residents being attacked as they run errands at night have reduced due to street lights.
“I'm looking for capital to start rearing and hatching poultry on my farm because now I have electricity,” he says.
Francis Makhoha says that posho mill operators in the area have started switching from diesel-run engines to electricity because it is cheap and never goes off.
He says some residents cultivate their farms even at night to increase food production because they have light throughout.
Ogos says Dr Orodi alias ‘Orieko Limited’ (Wisdom Limited) is now promoting irrigation and planting of sunflower.
“The bigger plan is to instal sunflower and avocado processing plants here to employ our people, improve incomes and boost food production," he says.
Dr Orodi, also a beneficiary of the project, is already pumping water from River Nzoia for irrigation on his sunflower farm.
For one to get connected, he or she has to pay Sh8,000. Overhead distribution, looping and house wiring then follow almost immediately.
Power distribution poles are sourced from private companies in Eldoret and Kisumu.
Every household pays a flat rate of Sh200 monthly utility fees to the CBO.
The Sh200 helps with maintenance and payment of technical staff and running of the organisation.
The CBO has contracted two technicians who offer professional house wiring and overhead distribution of power across the three villages.
Isaac Onyango, a trained electrical engineer, says he does the job as community service.
He says the CBO recently installed a step-up transformer that helps increase voltage and a step-down transformer that reduces power to consumable voltage.
The two transformers have increased the reliability of power in the area and reduced the risk of accidents that could result from excess power transmission, Onyango says.
He says three more transformers have been procured and will soon be installed to improve service.
On November 1 when Governor James Orengo toured the project, Dr Orodi says the solution for Kenya is to go off-grid.
“Kenya need simplified systems that are sustainable at a local level,” he says.
He says the project is a solution to social, economic and political problems of the area and a pointer to a village on the move.
Edited by A.N