Project Sunshine - Diepkloof

Tania Hattingh
Apr 2, 2018
2 min read

Greenpeace Africa's Climate & Energy campaign

Imagine walking home at night after a long day of work in dark streets fearing for your life. Imagine that you migrated to the big city with the hope for a better life, but now live in a community once again forgotten by the local authorities. For the residents of Diepsloot this is a daily reality.

The community of Diepsloot is one of many areas in large metropolitans that are in dire need for life-giving energy. They have little to no access to the grid, and there are no immediate plans for electrification. This means that the people of Diepsloot have to contend with walking down a dark street at night, with no solution in sight.

Greenpeace Africa's Climate & Energy campaign decided to take action and do something about it.

In partnership with the Philile Foundation, we launched Project Sunshine, an outreach project in Diepsloot that demonstrates the power of renewable energy to bring hope to an impoverished community, and provides a model that local municipalities can look to implement in areas without electricity.

After a successful crowdfunding campaign that exceeded the R 100 000 target, the solar street lights were installed and Project Sunshine has been successfully handed over to the community of Diepsloot.

The children of Diepsloot Philile Crèche benefited from the initiative as they will receive warm meals daily and when they make their way home in the evening they will walk through well-lit, safer streets. The adults going to literacy classes at the crèche in the evening will also be able to learn in well-lit rooms, and the community around the crèche will not have to walk through dark streets at night. This project is one small step towards creating communities that are a refuge.

Project Sunshine is an example of what our future could look like. Our current electricity system reinforces inequality because it simply bypasses many communities across South Africa.

Thanks to the support from people like you, this project proves that it is possible to install off-grid solar street lights or micro-grids that are powered by renewable energy, enabling access to those who need it most.

Renewable energy is the solution to not using dirty, dangerous coal or nuclear.

We can do this together. People power works!

Paul and the Greenpeace Africa team