Eni : switches on a light in Dadaab

Following the lecture given by the chief executive Claudio Descalzi, in a video conference with the children of the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, as part of the Vodafone Foundation's 'Instant classroom' initiative in 2015, we are now launching an education and access to energy project.

A call for ideas made by the chief executive to all employees provided the stimulus in the following months to develop a practical humanitarian programme to help the entire population.

On the basis of the many suggestions made by Eni employees, we have created a Sustainability structure which is coordinated with Eni's operational headquarters in Kenya. The feasibility of the proposed actions was verified also by visiting Kenya and meeting with the UNHCR (the UN agency for refugees) and other non-profit organisations already operating on the ground.

We consequently identified, as a priority, access to renewable energy and a crossover tool to support:

• education: through improvements to the lighting of schools and community areas, which a positive impact also on the general security and safety of the camp;
• water management using pumps, the installation of which, in addition to optimising water resources, will enable the launch of professional training initiatives linked to maintenance.

The project aims to provide renewable energy to facilitate education, access to water, the provision of lighting for selected educational centres that are still without electricity with the introduction, at some of them, of computer equipment.

Created in 1992, the Dadaab refugee camp is today a collection of 5 refugee camps with a total of 420,000 refugees. Around 60% of the total is under 18, and less than 50% attend school while 61% have no access to energy.