Where the sun is shining through the darkness

Greenpeace Africa’s solar street light project is providing much-needed electricity in Diepsloot where residents live off the grid

THE ROBBERS struck at 7.30pm, j ust as Mamosi Molusi was unlocking her front door. Two men grabbed her by her braids, throwing her to the ground.

One pointed a gun at her while two accomplices hid in the darkness, keeping watch.

“They t ook my phone, my jacket, my shoes and the R300 my employer had just given me,” Molusi says, looking terrified, as she recalls the 2010 robbery. “It was so scary.”

For the 43-year-old domestic worker, who l ives in a huddle of shacks deep within Diepsloot Ext 12, three similar robberies would follow – each as she made her way home from work after nightfall.

“There’s no electricity in Ext 12 at all,” she says, surveying the bleak infor mal settlement. “It’s so dark and easy for criminals to hide.”

Darkness breeds crime, explains Nhlanhla Sibisi, a climate and energy campaigner at Gre e n p e a c e Africa, especially in areas like Diepsloot, “fraught with abject poverty, lack of electricity and water”.

In Diepsloot, which has “built i t s re putation on crime”, robbery is most common, with “every door flimsy and each pathway a peril”. In Ext 12, i ts i nhabitants live of f the g rid, deprived of street and home lighting, he says.

“The murky streets deny residents a sense of safety during the dark hours of the night, and leave them with a strong sense of deprivation and insecurity.”

For Sibisi, Greenpeace Africa’s Project Sunshine is slowly helping to “tur n things around”.

Last month, with t he Philile Fo u n d a t i o n , it installed 12 gleaming rooftop solar panels in four classrooms and a kitchen, at the Die psloot Philil e crèche, which is supported by the foundation.

It has also put in an anaerobic bio-digester to prepare warm meals for the children.

This month, Greenpeace Africa plans to put up eight solar street lights – it is raising R100 000 in a crowdfunding campaign – around the crèche to keep it safe and help illuminate the community.

But Greenpeace Africa had bigger plans t o kee p Diepsloot’s residents safe. Its senior climate and energ y c ampaign manager, Melita Steele, explains how it started trying to go ahead with a project i n 2014 t o install 50 solar street lights i n four “crime hotspots” i n Die psloot. These were proposed by c ommunity members as the areas most in need of lighting and not part of electrification plans for the next decade.

“We finally had to downscale the project to at least be able to deliver something. From Greenpeace Africa’s perspective, i t seems l i ke City Powe r have actively bl ocked t hi s project f rom going ahead, with numero us e xc us e s and delay tactics,” she says.

“Wit h n o plans to electrify Diepsloot for years to come, innovative solutions like solar street lights should be the way of the future, and Greenpeace believes t hat this is a solution that could and should be replicated by municipalities across t he country,” Steele says.

For school principal Violet Nzimande, where there’s l i ght, t here’s s t i l l hope. “There was no light in any of our classrooms before this project,” she says, beaming. “This has made a great dif ference – during winter we’re going to have heaters for children.

“They’re going t o see wh at ’s in t heir books. B e fo re, it was too dark to s e e anyt hi ng. They can watch TV now, and l i sten to the radio.”

As the last glow of fading sunlight falls over Diepsloot, Priscilla Moloinyane enters her dark shack, navigating it with precision.

“Where’s my matches,” she mutters, as she scratches around her impeccably neat cupboards.

She l ights two paraf f in candles t hat i l l uminate a makeshift cor rugated iron roof, covered with newspapers to insulate it. “I’ve l ived l i ke this since 2007, with no electricity. It’s so cold and it’s not safe,” she says.

“At night you hear people s cream but you are t oo scared t o go outside. You can’t leave your house after 6pm, especially in winter.”

Yachika Reddy, of Sustainable Energy Africa, says eve r- e x p a ndi ng i nf o r mal settlements on the edges of cities, like Diepsloot, feel the brunt of energy poverty in South Africa.

Her research, with colleagues, has shown how the gover nment has made enormous inroads into dealing with the challenges of urban pover t y, poor households continue to struggle to fulfil basic needs.

Economic benefits from energy access include maternal and child health, educa- tion and opportunities for economic development.

“Increasingly, we’re finding that while it takes millions for metros to set down electricity in infor mal settlements, the take-up in these poor communities is l ow because most people can’t af ford to use electricity for cooking, lighting and heati ng. So for three- quarters of the month, they go back to unsafe methods such as paraffin and candles.

“We’re saying l et’s provide a portfolio of energ y sources t o i nfor mal communities, including renewable energy.”

Nico de Jager, the City of Joburg’s MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services, says it has allocated R162.7 million t o provide electricity and water connections to poor residents in infor mal settlements in this financial year.

For Sibisi and Greenpeace Africa, Project Sunshine has “the potential for re plication”, proving it’s possible to bring sustainable energy to off-grid communities sooner.

“We chose an area with no power because when it comes to renewables, you don’t have to wait for the grid to come to you… The short time it takes for renewable energy to be set up compared to coal power and nuclear power, which takes a hell of a long time.

“In one week, our whole i nstallation was f i nished. The following week we put the lights on at the crèche.

“One of the things we’re trying to do is to bring hope to communities l ike these and to tell them, ‘if we can do this, with your participation, imagine how much more the gover nment can do’.

“It’s not our intention as an NGO to embarrass the gover nment – it’s to support their ef forts.”