When the sun goes down, backyards and playgrounds in the city of Gyumri aren’t very welcoming.

Arsen Vardanyan’s solution? Solar-powered street lighting! Working closely with his local community to design, build and install the lights, Arsen’s idea has brought more than light to his neighbourhood. It has transformed the way his neighbours interact with their local public space, bringing people and communities together.

The addition of simple street lights, easy to construct, altered the community’s perception to the communal areas and helped foster a greater sense of togetherness and shared ownership.

With the seed funding and project mentoring support provided by Kolba Lab, four playgrounds and backyards now have solar-powered street lighting. Amazingly, this not only motivated the local government to build benches and other facilities to the yards, but also the residents of the surrounding buildings took on the responsibility to keep the newly renovated area as clean as possible.

What this means is that, with a small investment in street lights, these public spaces also received a shared investment in civic attention from community members. The value that people put in these communal spaces ultimately impacted on the social cohesion of the community.

Seeing the success of the idea, others want in on the action. With the avid support of the local government in Gyumri, the lights will soon be rolled out to more residents.