In the heart of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, where the sprawling Durumi Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp is home to thousands of people forced from their communities by conflict and chaos, a powerful new light known as the Lighthouse for Peace has dawned.
At the centre of this initiative is Stanley Anigbogu, a 25-year-old Nigerian energy innovator, who saw the IDP camp’s tangled walkways and makeshift shelters not just as hardship, but as an opportunity to foster hope and practical resilience through energy access.
Life in Durumi is a daily test of endurance. The camp’s more than 3,500 residents — 1,500 of them children have 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.
For Stanley, this reality ignited a restless empathy. Like many homes in Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria, where he grew up, his family did not have reliable electricity. Power cuts were frequent. Sometimes, they had electricity for only a few hours an entire week. He often had to study by candlelight or kerosene lamps.
Reflecting on what he saw at the camp, Stanley asked, “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 though 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. A decade later, he founded LightEd, a company that turns plastic waste into solar-powered charging stations.
Unlocking opportunities for all: The Commonwealth connection
Stanley’s most recent project — The Lighthouse for Peace — 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.
He said:
“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 floodlights now illuminate the camp’s once pitch darkness, while the central lighthouse charging station stands as a monument to both ingenuity and sustainability.”
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Crafted from 600 kilograms of recycled plastic — nearly 30,000 discarded plastic bottles— the Lighthouse for Peace brings clean, accessible light while safeguarding the environment the community calls home.
The IDP Camp Chairman Idris Ibrahim said:
“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”.
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.
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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. The Lighthouse for Peace now charges more than 250 devices each week.
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 for all.
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.
These days, as dusk falls in Durumi the glow of solar lights reveals children playing, women and men gathering in safety, and hope flickering like fireflies on the faces of the once forgotten. The Lighthouse has become a beacon — physical and symbolic — of what can be achieved when compassion, innovation, and global partnership converge.
