Lighting Up Bangalore's Slums With Solar Powered Lights

All around Bangalore, wedged between gleaming new apartment towers, and hidden in the back of construction sites and highway underpasses, tens of thousands of people live in makeshift tent communities and slums. Breathing in the stench of sewage and garbage, the children who live there play with broken pieces of construction materials and objects they pick out of the trash. 

Children of migrant workers living in tent community. Their families cook, eat and sleep on dirt floors with no access to water, sanitation or electricity. Until recently, their only source of light was a kerosene lamp, which emits toxic fumes that fill the small plastic-covered tents with black smoke, causing respiratory problems, burns and fires.

But a new kind of light is now replacing the dangerous kerosene. An innovative Australian non-profit called Pollinate Energy has developed an inexpensive solar powered light that can also charge mobile phones (many slum dwellers have phones). The business model is simple: train a local sales force called “Pollinators” to sell the lights, and provide them with mentors who teach entrepreneurial skills, enabling the Pollinators to build their own businesses.

Tent slum community next to luxury apartment construction site

Pollinate Energy is a clean energy organization running at full speed fueled by positivity and millennial passion. Its founders, who are in their twenties, call it a social business – a financially stable organization whose mission is to “create sustainable solutions to social problems.” Pollinate began its operations in the slums of Bangalore in 2012 and today it has a staff of three and 20 full-time Pollinators who have sold over 3500 lights. The company was recently awarded a Momentum for Change Award from the United Nations Climate Change secretariat. The award recognizes innovative solutions that address both climate change and wider economic, social and environmental challenges.

The Pollinate model is to create self-sustaining micro-economies. The Pollinators work in slum communities where they live or have cultural connections that help them earn the trust of the residents. Wearing bright yellow shirts, they navigate the alleys of the tent communities selling and installing solar lighting systems. The Pollinators receive a monthly retainer and earn commission on each sale above their monthly targets.

Woman shows the solar panel that sits on top of her tent all day soaking up the sun

At the outset, the Pollinators have to push past generations-old cultural taboos to convince skeptical slum dwellers that a small 15 x 20 centimeter shiny flat panel tied onto the top of their tent will absorb enough energy from the sun to power a bright light AND charge a mobile phone. For many, that first sales pitch seems unthinkable – ‘How can a flat box light up my tent? We have always used kerosene.’ When prospective customers see the demonstration, however, word spreads quickly. The lights cost 1700 rupees (27 US dollars), paid in a five-week installment plan.

Once they pay it off, they are fueled for free by the blazing Bangalore sun. 

Migrant worker invited us into his tent to see his solar light

I recently toured one of the tent communities in North Bangalore with Pollinate’s co-founder Ben Merven. A Pollinator named Rajan translated as we talked to a migrant worker. Holding his baby, the worker told us that, with his new light, his daughter can play at night and his wife can see the food she is preparing. 

The worker proudly invited us inside his tent to see how it works and said he hopes his daughter will learn to read by that light. He also said that his family no longer has stinging eyes and hacking coughs. Studies have shown that lung damage from smoke exposure in non-ventilated tents can cause respiratory illnesses; the second largest cause of premature death in this population of women and young children. 

Merven says, “I enjoy working with a product that can change a family’s life – its such a simple concept and I love problem solving. I especially like working in India, it’s a place where we can stop talking and just do it. I also like the fact that these lights can enhance the safety of women and children in the tent camps at night.” Since 2012, Pollinate has provided 3,500 solar lights in 300 of Bangalore’s estimated 600 slum communities.

The problem of “energy poverty,” according to Merven, is widely prevalent, not just in Bangalore; across India one quarter of the population lives without access to electricity – that’s roughly 390 million people. And 235 million of those households cook over open fires fueled by kerosene and animal dung. To address that problem, Pollinate will soon be selling a new product - efficient, safer, low cost cook stoves. The organization plans to expand this year to Hyderabad and Chennai. Merven estimates that the use of solar lights has already saved 100,000 liters of kerosene and averted the polluting impact of 225,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions.

Daughter of migrant worker

Pollinate’s business is fueled by highly motivated volunteer fellows – recent college graduates and professionals who raise funds to travel from Australia to work in India for a month training the Pollinators and learning the business. The fellows also partner with local Indian volunteers in the Young Indian Professional Programs. Merven says the goal is to “empower local Indian entrepreneurs and help inspire the next generation of social entrepreneurs.” Pollinate Energy hopes one day, to reach every city in India with a population over one million people, bringing light and hope.