Consumer Education
A lack of education and ability to assess lighting product performance disempowers consumers. Lighting Africa, recognizing the need to grow and sustain consumer confidence in this new market sector, launched a consumer education campaign to encourage rural populations in Kenya to adopt solar lighting. In Kenya, about 80 % of the population is off-grid, or without access to a public electricity utility. Most of these populations are in rural areas, and rely on kerosene, candles or wick sticks: expensive, inefficient and often hazardous lighting sources.
The campaign targets 13.5 million people in rural Kenya, both households and small businesses, and teaches them how switching from fuel- based lighting to modern solar lighting can improve their health, reduce spending on expensive fuels, and provide better illumination and more productive time in their homes, schools and businesses.
The campaign also helps consumers become knowledgeable buyers and be able to distinguish between substandard products and good quality lamps.
Lighting Africa has organized 66 forums to date in small rural towns to help rural populations improve the ways they light their homes and businesses. During these sessions, actors play drama skits explaining the benefits of solar lighting and trainers help consumer distinguish between substandard products and high quality lamps.
The forum participants then spend a few minutes in a dark room where they have the opportunity to experience the difference in illumination between kerosene lamps and solar portable lights first hand. In parallel, the campaign is staging road shows in market towns to increase consumer interest in the solar portable lights that passed Lighting Africa quality tests. The road shows are attracting crowds of 300-500 people every evening, and are packed with trivia, dance shows and a chance to see and test out the solar lights. A similar consumer education campaign is set to start soon in Ghana.
