By Fred Deya
With only 15 ($0.15) ksh homes of dozens in Kisumu’s Nyamasaria village are shining, thanks to Richard Ochieng’s solar business project.
Unlike other local traders in the local shopping center who are in other business, Richard does what it takes to promote the less life-risky source of lighting in many homes.
The young man is hiring out his Sun King lamps to villagers at an affordable cost of 15ksh a day.
The project is a kind of move that Ochieng meant to help poor Nyamasaria dwellers to alleviate the historic lack of clean energy in the poor community.
Nyamasaria is one of the villages bordering the third Kenya’s capital city (Kisumu). However, the access to electricity is still a pipedream to majority because of poverty.
“I started this small business with an agenda to help people have clean energy and cease life hazardous wick lamps which have been the source of light for many years. In the other hand the cost of fuel has been cut”, says Ochieng.
The young entrepreneur parted with about 12,000 Ksh and started off his solar business in 2012 where he purchased five solar lamps for a startup, but now his monthly turnover amounts to over 100,000 Ksh which is lucrative.
Ochieng who is a resident at Obamo area of Kisumu west-sub County said that his business was a thoughtful after engaging with Swedish trainers.
A group of people from Sweden were in the country researching on entrepreneurship and training local youths during an open seminar at Kisumu polytechnic.
Richard is a passionate young individual whose professional dream is linked to artistic work. He studied at the Kenya Industrial Technical Training whereby he first involved in a painting and decorating trade.
However, Ochieng was convinced to diversify his businesses in order to upsurge his source of income.
Ochieng current has got his own enterprise (Art Bone Enterprise) which is doing quite well. The response is fantastic because his hiring price is affordable to any person.
“I studied an array of business proposals that the researchers had and fell for the concept of buying and selling solar lanterns. However, I wanted to be different from the shops that sell lanterns. I thought of renting them out cheaply to fishermen,” he said.
Sun King pro and solo was the Ochieng’s preferred lighting samples among those brought by Swedish scholars. He bought the sample lamps at sh 4500 (UD 45) and Sh 2500 (UD 25) respectively.
He is now dealing with suppliers from Nairobi whereby his lamps are accompanied by a solar panel, charging wire, and universal phone chargers. The panel is for charging solar lamps.
Sun King solar lamps are made of stands and handle and can be hanged from the ceiling or balanced on a table; both Solo and Pro lamps.
The trade never went as per Ochieng’s expectation because the income was quite low at the beginning. He was managing a monthly income of about Sh 7000 as he was familiarizing the market niche.
One of the Sun King Pro solar lamps purchased by the solar trader in Kisumu’s nyamasaria
Solar entrepreneur had to assume his side target market of supplying solar lamps to fishermen because the lamp never appealed to the target fisher community because the lamps had no capacity to radiate warmth which normally attracts fish to fishing vessels.
Therefore he changed his business strategy when he landed to a superb idea of renting out solar lamps to Nyamasaria village dwellers that have no capacity to install electricity of the national grid due to high cost of installation and monthly charges.
“There are those who want the lamps to use in their households since they do not have electricity, whereas small scale grocers want to use them in the market at night. A random lot requests for the lamps during power blackouts, a frequent occurrence here,” He says.
Ochieng is currently engaging with community self-help group known as Neno Mbele where he gets financial management support.
Through solar business, the young man is able to carter for his daily expenses; take care of his three, orphan siblings.
The Sun King solar lamps have a lifespan of eight to 10 years while its battery lasts up to five years.
The artist made an estimate that by the time the years elapse; he will have made an average of close to Sh54, 000 from each lantern.
