Life-changing: Electricity makes all the difference

Fikile Simposi from Swakopmund and her family will never forget the day she was told she would receive electricity from the Towards an Inclusive Design of the Renewable Energy Transition (TIDRET) project.

According to the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia (EIF), this life-changing event brought unending joy to the community, but also to her family of two.

The EIF said until recently, Simposi was an unemployed housewife but will be starting a new job soon.

“God has not forgotten me. I have been staying in the Shack Dwellers Federation’s house without electricity for two years now, but now we have electricity. And I start a new job in the coming days. No words can explain the joy in my heart,” Simposi said.



Quality of life better

She said that days and nights have been long without electricity. According to the EIF, they would use other people's fridges to store meat, charge mobile phones and do their laundry; however, this did not come cheap.

According to Simposi, she would pay N$100 for a batch of laundry and N$2.00 to charge her phone, which has a battery life of about two to three days before needing to recharge.

“I am extremely happy that I can now use my fridge for my meat, do my laundry and charge my phone. I can now say that I have everything at home.”

Before electricity, when her house ran out of gas, they had to make a fire outside."

“In Swakopmund, it is hard because firewood is hard to come by, so we had to opt for pallets, but that was a struggle, or we needed to fork out more money to buy wood,” she said.

Moreover, acquiring matches could take days.

“Now it is just a click of a button, and then there is light. Gone are the days I did laundry with my hands, which brought me blisters and bleeding hands. My hands can rest now.”



Be patient

Simposi said they are equally excited for the next batch of people who are yet to receive electricity.

She urged them not to give up hope and reminded them of how long they had waited for these houses.

“We waited for 17 years for these houses until we finally got them. Just be patient. It will come.

“To the partners who made this possible, thank you for all your efforts and to Erongo Red that allowed the TIDRET project to put in electricity for us.”



Helping hands

The TIDRET Project is an initiative led by EIF under the Climate Change and Inclusive Use of Natural Resources Project (CCIU-EU) of the environment ministry and administered through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

The key objectives of the project are to facilitate the formulation of evidence-based, gender-sensitive nationally determined contributions (NDCs) projects and business models for climate action and, subsequently, to facilitate public and private sector stakeholder dialogues to support investment in climate action on various platforms.

The project aims to promote solar electrification in three designated business sectors that are legally recognised under Namibian law.