How local innovator is helping to light up Abuja’s IDP camp,
By Sola Ogundipe
Once upon a time, walking into the Durumi Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, the high number of people there was immediately apparent.
According to The Commonwealth, a check on the figures showed that no less than 3,500 people, about 1,500 of them children, had weathered over a decade of displacement.
Their stories are of loss: homes abandoned in haste, families splintered by violence and conflict, and a gnawing darkness that descends at nightfall with each power outage.
A decade of darkness
When the sun went down, the darkness settled heavily on the area. For years, nightfall had ended every activity in the camp.
Happily, things have gradually picked up and the whole scenario looks much different now, thanks to a 26-year-old young adult, named Stanley Anigbogu, who set up a powerful new light which he calls the Lighthouse for Peace.
Innovation born from experience
Stanley is a hero of sorts. Growing up in Onitsha, he spent his childhood squinting over books by candlelight or kerosene lamps because the grid was unreliable.
Sometimes they’d go a whole week with maybe two hours of power, that kind of frustration sticks, so, when he looked at the makeshift shelters and tangled paths of Durumi, he saw a place that needed a light left on – the Lighthouse for Peace.
Turning 30,000 bottles into a beacon
The centerpiece is a charging station built out of roughly 30,000 discarded plastic bottles – about 600kg of recycled plastic that would’ve just sat there otherwise. Now, it’s where everyone congregates.
It is a place that brings clean, accessible light while safeguarding the environment the community calls home. For Stanley, the transformation was a necessity.
“What hope is left for a child to dream in such a place? The answer is not simply charity, but empowerment. It is hope, engineered and made tangible through energy solutions”.
Stanley’s own struggles sparked his curiosity about how electricity worked. He became interested in finding solutions to energy security at the age of 15, creating robots and rockets using scrap and second-hand electronic components.
In 2020 he founded LightEd, a company that turns plastic waste into solar-powered charging stations.
The Lighthouse for Peace, his latest project, was an idea he mooted on the eve of becoming the 2025 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year, at the Commonwealth Secretariat headquarters in London.
“With the Commonwealth’s support through the seed funding from my prize, I got to work on an idea that was as inventive as it was inclusive. Together we have brought more than energy to the camp – we wove a tapestry of community, dignity, and pride.
“Thirty solar streetlights and twenty solar flood lights now illuminate the camp’s once pitch darkness, while the central lighthouse charging station stands as a monument to both ingenuity and sustainability.”
In the view of the IDP Camp Chairman, Idris Ibrahim, “It is a welcome development, and everybody is excited about it. Even those who do not have phones are excited because they come to the station for much more than access to energy”.
More than just electricity
The Lighthouse design came to life with the input of community volunteers, many of whom were young people. Artwork featuring connected hands – painted by women – wraps the streetlights and the lighthouse alike, a visual testament to peace, togetherness, and the shared journey toward a more prosperous future.
Today, this motif, echoing the Commonwealth’s spirit, unlocks new opportunities for all who call the camp home.
Children, who once studied by the pale glow of kerosene lamps or not at all, now assemble glow lamps and chase sparks of curiosity in science and engineering. Young people, too, have found purpose, participating in the construction of the lighthouse itself while developing green skills that will outlast the project.
Environmental sustainability is knitted tightly into this new fabric of life. The waste collection system – simple, robust, and community-driven – has imbued a culture of recycling and responsibility throughout Durumi.
A blueprint for the future
Stanley’s lighthouse project is a testament to the Commonwealth’s partnership ethos, rooted in the principle of unity and shared progress. It also resonates with the Commonwealth Day 2026 theme which calls for collective action to face today’s challenges and unlock opportunities that deliver shared, lasting prosperity.
On 11 March, the Commonwealth will announce the 2026 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year in London.
The message to the 20 shortlisted finalists is simple: even in the deepest darkness, a young person’s idea backed by an enduring partner can unlock opportunities and inspire an entire community to dream again.
When dusk falls in Durumi these days, one does not just see shadows, it’s the glow of solar lights on faces of children playing, women and men gathering in safety, that, for a long time, felt forgotten.
It’s a start. The Lighthouse has become a beacon – physical and symbolic – of what can be achieved when compassion, innovation, and global partnership converge.
The post How local innovator is helping to light up Abuja’s IDP camp appeared first on Vanguard News.
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Once upon a time, walking into the Durumi Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, the high number of people there was immediately apparent.
The post How local innovator is helping to light up Abuja’s IDP camp appeared first on Vanguard News.
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