SNV celebrates World Refugee Day at Kakuma refugee camp

This week we marked World Refugee Day. On this occasion, our SNV Kenya staff celebrated with energy company partners at Kakuma refugee camp, where SNV is implementing the EnDev Market Based Energy Access (MBEA) II project.

Currently, there are over 80 million people around the world who have fled their own home countries due to war, violence, and persecution. Every year, to celebrate their resilience and courage and honour the communities who welcome and receive the refugees to live amongst them, World Refugee Day is an opportunity to share the objective of UNHCR's global public advocacy campaign "#withrefugees." This year the day focuses on the right to seek safety: Whoever. Wherever. Whenever. Everyone has the right to seek safety.

In Kenya, which currently hosts 540,000 refugees, World Refugee Day is marked by celebratory events in refugee-hosting areas, including Kakuma refugee camp, Dadaab refugee camp and Nairobi. As part of World Refugee Day celebrations in Kakuma, the SNV team organised a clean energy technologies exhibit in which SNV's partner companies showcased their improved cooking solutions, solar products and electric pressure cookers.

SNV, through the MBEA project, works to support clean energy companies in Kakuma refugee camp, Kakuma town and Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement to increase the supply of cooking and solar solutions and​ stimulate demand through awareness-raising and behavioural change communication campaigns. Since the start of the project, the partner companies have sold more than 7,000 solar products and 10,000 improved cookstoves and provided more than 850 micro-businesses access to clean energy. SNV continuously promotes new solutions and innovations that increase access to clean energy services, including electric cooking among mini-grid customers in Kalobeyei in the PEPCI-K project.

On World Refugee Day, we join all our partners in showing solidarity with refugees. Together, we can work to create a more sustainable world, ensuring that no one is left behind.

#withrefugees #SDG7

For more information

For more information on our energy access activities at Kakuma and Kalobeyei, please contact Karlijn Groen, Project Advisor - kgroen@snv.org.