Living in informal settlements puts enormous social, economic, and financial burdens on households, and it can lead to intergenerational poverty. Several factors contribute to the perpetuation of poverty, including fire, crime, flood and a limited ability to access basic financial services & technologies to protect assets. Climate change is increasing the frequency and duration of extreme weather conditions – informal settlements are particularly vulnerable to climate change, and are increasingly likely to face disaster as a result.

We work with low-income communities to co-develop products & services that improve dignity, safety & financial security. Together we:

As part of Lumkani’s broader mission, we seek to mitigate the loss of life and property caused by informal settlement fires in South Africa and across the globe. 

Large fires are common due to a myriad of factors: high risk forms of cooking, heating and lighting; low-cost, highly flammable building materials; poor quality electricity connections; under-resourced response systems; and high density of homes. Climate change is increasing the frequency and duration of both droughts and heat waves – these extreme conditions are escalating the likelihood of the ignition and spread of fires.

To tackle this challenge, we implement large-scale rollouts of our award-winning fire detection system in urban informal settlements, slums, and refugee settings. We have years of data showing the impact of our work. See attached the summary of a comprehensive third-party research project into the impact of our detection system. This study was conducted by Kantar, and was funded by UK aid, through the GSMA’s mobile for humanitarian innovation fund.

Coupled with our fire detection system, we offer our inclusive fire insurance to ensure that vulnerable households have the financial protection they need to recover from fire-related disasters.

Sa SME wins prestigious humanitarian award and €1-million.