At the Mwezi Foundation, our 10 years’ experience has amply demonstrated that there is no lack of ability or ambition among the students we help. Given even a small chance, many will pull out all the stops to improve their prospects. Noel’s story powerfully illustrates this.

The beauty of Mwezi’s work is how simple our intervention is: we bring light so people can see after dark. This basic change has benefits at so many levels: education, gender equity, finances, physical and mental health, self-motivation, agency, morale… We also repair any Mwezi lamp that malfunctions, for free – so recipients know that light will always be reliably available.

A Mwezi light offers both immediate practical help, and hope for the long term.

I was born in August 2004, the youngest of five children. My father is a pensioner but has never received any pension. My mother is a nursery-school teacher. My parents are Christians and though we are poor we are a very happy family.

EARLY YEARS

Houses in our village are very small, and mainly covered with thatch from coconut palms. Living standards are very low. Whoever owns a bicycle is considered rich. The land is unproductive due to climate change, so hunger is the norm; I sought solace in studies. My parents and teachers have always inspired me to do my very best.

Life was very difficult. We used firewood for cooking because there were no other sources, and sometimes the firewood was wet so it was very slow to cook. We would go to school without any breakfast. And kerosene was very, very expensive. We couldn’t afford it. From an economic point of view our family was going through a lot.

MAKING THE MOST OF A MWEZI LIGHT

The Mwezi Foundation came at a very crucial time, in 2018, when I was preparing for the national KCPE exam which I took in 2019. The light made a real difference. I could read as long as I wanted. I’m so, so grateful for that.

When the lights came, I said to my friends: ‘Why don’t we see if we can stay in school overnight and spend more time studying and helping each other?’ Because everyone was strong in different subjects. So I asked the head teacher and they allowed it.

We studied in the evenings, and then we used to sleep on the floor, using mats and sacks. We didn’t have water, so after school we would carry jerrycans, about 20 litres, to fetch water about 1km away. Sometimes we had food from the government through aid, but most times we went without. But we had to persevere, because we knew it was the journey to greatness.

In the morning I would wake everyone up, and between about 4.30am and 6.00am we would study more: using the lamps, discussing and helping each other. The most important thing was access to the lights and time to read. We were so, so, so happy with that.

And our performance went up. The previous year, the highest in our school scored 366/500 in the KCPE exam, but in our year I managed to get 422 marks*. And others scored 407, 400, 399 and so on. Over 1 million students took that exam, and I was among the top 500. I won a place at a national school which is the best in the country, called Alliance High School.

And right now the group is doing so, so well at university. Aside from me studying Computer Science, Happy is doing Biosystems and Engineering, Daniel is also doing Computer Science, Khamis is studying Marine Engineering, and Jonathan and Esther are studying Clinical Medicine.

LONDON INTERNATIONAL YOUTH SCIENCE FORUM

After finishing high school, I managed to get an attachment at the Kenyan Medical Research Institute, which is part of the Wellcome Trust. It was a very tough selection process of exams, aptitude tests and interviews. Then, after 3 months, I was encouraged to apply to an organisation called Young Scientists for Africa; again a very rigorous selection process. In the end I was among 7 students from across the whole of Africa who were given scholarships to attend the London International Youth Science Forum (LIYSF), held at Imperial College. This was in July 2025. I met people from over 90 countries, made so many connections, and attended lectures by world-leading scientists, including Nobel Prize winners. It was such an eye-opening opportunity for me, that I would never have imagined I could get.

And I was able to present a project, too. It’s a machine learning model that I built to predict diseases in crops such as tomatoes. Where I come from, farmers lose up to 90% of their yields because of fungal diseases – because it’s hard to differentiate between normal leaf spores and those caused by fungi. So with this artificial intelligence model, a convolutional neural network (CNN), you simply take a photo of the leaf on your mobile phone, and it tells you whether it is healthy or not with breathtaking accuracy. My project was among just 10 chosen from the 200 submitted to be presented at the Royal Geographical Society – such an out-of-this-world experience!

FUTURE PLANS

In September 2025 I started on the second year of my Computer Science degree, and I would love to major in artificial intelligence and cyber security. But I also want to make things that help people in real time, especially in our village and our community. Over my career I would love to come up with new tools and new inventions to help people in society.

I am so excited about the future, and I know I’ve come on this path because of the Mwezi Foundation and the light. The light has just been shining in my life. That is where the journey started, and I am so, so grateful. I can trace back my success to that one simple solar lamp that I got many years ago. Thank you.

*This score put Noel in the top 0.05% of students in Kenya.

Noel aged 14, receiving a Mwezi light.

Noel speaking at LIYSF, hosted by Imperial College, London, in July 2025.

Noel visited Mwezi Foundation trustee Claire Paye at her home in July 2025, during his trip to the UK.