Tag Archives: Solar Sister

Bringing Renewable Energy to Rural Communities

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"The first Women Barefoot Solar Engineers of Mauritania are installing solar panels in their villages. These African women trained for 6 months at the Barefoot College of Tilonia in Rajasthan, India. They will earn an income paid by the people in their village for maintaining the solar-powered lighting systems that they install for each house in the village." (Text and photo: Barefoot Photographers of Tilonia)

"The first Women Barefoot Solar Engineers of Mauritania are installing solar panels in their villages. These African women trained for 6 months at the Barefoot College of Tilonia in Rajasthan, India. They will earn an income paid by the people in their village for maintaining the solar-powered lighting systems that they install for each house in the village." (Text and photo: Barefoot Photographers of Tilonia)

Renewable energies such as solar, wind, and geothermal are being used in communities around the world. Rural communities, particularly those struggling with severe poverty, may be forced to rely on energy sources that are not healthy, environmentally-friendly, or sustainable.  In India, smoke inhalation from traditional cook stoves poses a serious health problem, particularly for the women and children that do the majority of the cooking.  Using renewable energies can provide a safer, more environmentally-friendly source of power.

It is important to note, however, that the initial investment in getting solar panels installed, wind turbines up and running, or tapping into geothermal energy can be very expensive.  As these sources become more wildely used and as technologies advance, these sources of energy are becoming cheaper.  There are projects being sponsored by both organizations and governments around the world to offset some of these costs.

One organization working specifically with

women to bring renewable energy to rural communities is Solar Sister.  Check out these four guest blogs by members of Solar Sister for more information about their work and some of their projects!

What are some of the benefits of renewables in rural communities? As this United Nations article states, “Remote and scattered, rural homes, unlike homes in urban areas, are costly and often impractical to connect to the grid.”  Renewable energy such as solar power can be particularly useful in areas where grid connection is difficult and/or expensive: “African countries, blessed with sunlight all year round, are tapping this free and clean energy source to light up remote and isolated homes that have no immediate hope of linking to their national electricity grid.”

For more information on how renewable energies are being used in developing countries, check out this February 2013 publication by the World Resources Institute, “Implementation Strategies for Renewable Energy Services in Low-Income, Rural Areas.”

 

Guest Blog: Solar Sister #4

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Solar Sister’s Energy Access & Health Matters Series:
Clean Energy Services to Achieve Millennium Development Health Goals

In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from basic forms of injustice and inequality in our world: extreme poverty, illiteracy and ill health. This pledge became the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) to be achieved by 2015. Health is at the heart of the MDG’s with three goals related directly to health: reduce child mortality, improve material health and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases). Health is also linked with the achievement of all the other goals, especially eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal education, and gender equality.

A key ingredient of achieving these health goals will have to be reliable access to clean energy. This has two dimensions: First, displacing the use and consequences of unhealthy fuels like kerosene and fuel wood that I have written about in my earlier blog pieces in this series. Second, reliable clean energy supply is vital for health care providers to help them focus on their job of improving health of the poor. It is this second dimension that I want to speak to you about now. For without energy, how can hospitals and clinics ensure refrigeration of critical vaccines and sterilization of equipment? How can important medical procedures like delivery of babies be carried out in the dark? How can simple medical records be digitized for faster and more efficient service? How can public health messages to prevent deadly diseases be spread on radio and television?

Solar Sister Zuura is also pursuing a Bachelor of Nursing. Hear Zuura talk about providing clean energy for better healthcare services in her village on YouTube. (Photo and Video Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

Good news is that we have a growing number of innovative organizations and individuals around the world, who are working hard to raise awareness on this important connection between health and energy. For example, Solar Sister Zuura in Uganda is also pursuing a Bachelors of Nursing degree. Zuura talks about the need of light for night and evening shifts in health clinics while putting up IV fluids and emergency blood transfusions. She is proud to be a Solar Sister Entrepreneur because not only can she earn a living now, but help her bring light which can save many lives in her community.

Another inspiring story is that of Solar Sister’s friend Dr. Laura Stachel, Co-Founder & Executive Director at WE CARE Solar. In 2008, Dr.Stachel went to Northern Nigeria to study ways to lower maternal mortality in state hospitals. She witnessed deplorable conditions in state facilities including sporadic electricity that impaired maternity and surgical care. Without a reliable source of electricity, nighttime deliveries were attended in near darkness, cesarean sections were cancelled or conducted by flashlight, and critically ill patients waited hours or days for life-saving procedures. The outcomes were often tragic. Moved by this critical need, she wrote to her husband Hal Aronson, a solar energy educator back in Berkeley, California. Together, Laura and Hal co-founded WE CARE Solar to improve maternal health outcomes in regions without reliable electricity which designs portable, cost-effective solar suitcases that power critical lighting, mobile communication devices and medical devices in low resource areas without reliable electricity.

WE CARE Solar's robust, plug-and-play Solar Suitcases facilitate timely, safe, appropriate emergency obstetric care and improve outcomes for mothers and newborns (Photo credit: WE CARE Solar, 2011)

If we can support many more women like Solar Sister Zuura and Dr. Laura Stachel around the world, no more lives would be lost for the lack of light. The UN has announced 2012 as the International Sustainable Energy for All Year. As part of the initiative, the United Nations Foundation has launched a new global Energy Access Practitioner Network to mobilize execution. You can also make a difference by understanding and increasing awareness on this important issue of energy and health.

These posts are written by Neha Misra, the Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister.  You can follow her on Twitter at @LightSolar.

Join Solar Sister in spreading light, hope and opportunity. Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Learn more at www.solarsister.org.

Guest Blog: Solar Sister #3

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Solar Sister Energy Access & Health Matters Series:
What has women and girl’s health to do with clean energy?

Did you know that energy poverty has a female face? Women and girls in villages, small towns and shanty dwellings dispersed across the length and breadth of Asia, Africa and Latin America live with the worst consequences of energy poverty. Let’s put spotlight on two key health dimensions that often get sidelined in discussions on why energy access is so important for women’s health. One, the burden of lifting heavy fuelwood for cooking over long distances and two, women’s sanitation and safety concerns related to the use of outdoor bathrooms without basic lighting at night.

In Entoto, on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, thousands of women and girls collect firewood. They carry these burdensome heavy loads for many miles, which they will use or sell as woodfuel. In Ethiopia 90% of energy comes from biomass like wood and charcoal (Photo Credits: Wikipedia) All over the world, rural women heavily depend on fuel wood for cooking. According to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, over half of world’s population cooks food, boils water, and warm their homes using wood, dung and other local biomass. The World Health Organization estimates that exposure to smoke from cooking constitutes the fifth worst risk factor for disease in developing countries. Open fires and poorly designed makeshift cook stoves emit smoke and particulate matter which are responsible for nearly 2 million deaths a year worldwide.

In most cases, women and children are responsible for collecting the wood, a very time-consuming and tiring task. International Energy Agency estimates that the average fuel wood load in sub-Saharan Africa is around 20 kg (44 lbs) but loads of 38 kg (84 lbs) have also been recorded. Women can suffer serious long-term physical damage carrying such heavy loads on their back with impacts like low birth weights in babies. Add to this the constant risk of falls, bites or assault, that risk of injury rises steeply the further from home women and children have to walk to collect the wood due to deforestation engulfing many areas. The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is fighting these issues to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions.

The other women’s health issue related to energy poverty was brought to my attention by Sarah Kasule, Program Coordinator with the Mother’s Union of Uganda, which is one of Solar Sister’s key grassroots partners in training rural women as solar entrepreneurs. Sarah told me an important benefit of solar light for the women of Africa that I had not heard about from anyone else I’d met. She said that in Uganda, open pit toilets are often located outside the houses/larger settlements and in absence of light; women have to walk in the dark to use the toilet. This is not a very appealing topic for most to talk about openly but is extremely important from women’s health perspective as women pick up all kinds of unsavory infections in absence of clean toilets and worse, without being able to see where they are going. Besides, walking alone in the thick of night to use the toilet increases the risk of gender-based violence, which drives women further into poverty. The situation is worse for women living in refugee camps. Access to light can be one of the important tools to improve nighttime security and health for women. Sarah is happy that now with the unique partnership between Solar Sister and Mother’s Union of Uganda, this important issue can get much needed light.

These posts are written by Neha Misra, the Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister.  You can follow her on Twitter at @LightSolar.

Join Solar Sister in spreading light, hope and opportunity. Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Learn more at www.solarsister.org.

Guest Blog: Solar Sister #2

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Solar Sister’s Energy Access & Health Matters Series:
Reading Should Not Be Injurious To Children’s Health

I love to read.

There is so much to read and learn that I feel one lifetime is not enough. There are three things required for reading – First and foremost, a quest for knowledge or stories or both (mysteries are my favorites!). Second, a book, a school lesson, a magazine, a newspaper or a good website, depending on what you like to read and using which platform. Third, but not the least by any means, good light. For how can you read if there is no light?

And even more, how can you read if reading was to be injurious to health? It is not supposed to be like smoking after all. But for many young children in villages and small towns around the world reading is injurious to health in ways as harmful as smoking and even more. Why? Because these children do not have good quality light available to read. They read under the dim, smoky, dangerous kerosene lanterns and candles.

An early advertisement for Edison
Mazda Lamps (Image courtesy of Solar Sister)
An early advertisement for Edison
Mazda Lamps (Image courtesy of Solar Sister)

Then there is also the constant danger of getting burnt as the slightest nudge to the lantern can make hot kerosene spill and cause injuries. A study conducted in Irrua, Nigeria showed that more than 50% of burn victims brought into hospitals were victims of fires caused by overturned or exploding kerosene lamps. Another estimate says that more children die from fire related injuries than fatalities from diseases like tuberculosis or malaria. Burns are no fun – they hurt and make the body vulnerable to many other infections. In fact, skin is the largest organ of the body which acts like an army protecting the castle of our bodies from any outside attack. When skin is burnt, our whole body is at risk. And with risks like this, doing school homework cannot be fun.

Reading should not be injurious to the health of any child.  It should be something that children enjoy as they open their minds to wonderful new worlds of facts and imagination to which books hold the magic key.  Solar Sister provides a solution by displacing kerosene lanterns with solar lights that are affordable, safe and bright.  Solar Sister Mary says she is proud to sell great solar products to her community, as now children do not have to get burnt by kerosene and candle.  Besides, domestic fires not burn houses any more.  With bright light, children are not scared of reading any but look forward to doing their homework and reading new stories.

Solar Sister Mary from Kumi, Eastern Uganda. Hear Mary’s story on YouTube (Photo and Video Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

Solar Sister Mary from Kumi, Eastern Uganda. Hear Mary’s story on YouTube (Photo and Video Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

As you finish reading this blog piece, I ask you to reflect for a minute to be grateful for your reading light, on what it must be for children to be without light and what you can do spread some light as well.

Children use solar light to read in Mityana, Central Uganda (Photo Credit: Solar Sister, 2011)

Children use solar light to read in Mityana, Central Uganda (Photo Credit: Solar Sister, 2011)

These posts are written by Neha Misra, the Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister.  You can follow her on Twitter at @LightSolar.

Join Solar Sister in spreading light, hope and opportunity. Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Learn more at www.solarsister.org.

Guest Blog: Solar Sister #1

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In recognition of 2012 as United Nations International Sustainable Energy for All Year, this four part special guest blog series from Solar Sister puts the spotlight on linkages between energy access and health matters that must be part of global conversations.

Neha Misra, Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister (Courtesy Photo)

Neha Misra, Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister (Courtesy Photo)

These posts are written by Neha Misra, the Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister - an innovative social enterprise that is bringing a women run grassroots clean energy revolution to spread light, hope and opportunity in Africa and beyond. Trained as an Energy Economist, Neha is also a poet and says that Solar Sister is poetry in another form really. For how poetic is that – to sprinkle sunshine in people’s lives who, in turn, can pass the baton on to keep the magic alive and make our world a brighter place to live in!

Solar Sister’s Energy Access & Health Matters Series:
Connecting the dots between Global Energy Poverty & Health

There are many things we take for granted in life.

For example, if you are reading this on your bright desktop computer or a laptop or a smart phone, chances are that your day is not absorbed by darkness as soon as the sun sets down.

But it is the case for more than 1.6 billion people – a quarter of humanity which has not seen a single light bulb, for it lives in the heart of darkness as soon as the sun sets down. Can you picture 1.6 billion people living without any light? No nighttime stories read by mothers by bedside reading lights, no brightly lit family dinner tables around which everyone shares stories about their day, no holiday season with bright lights. Instead, there is the health risk due to use of toxic and dangerous    kerosene lanterns and candles used for light.

Woman in Uganda selling roasted corn by the light of her kerosene lamp; Sub-Saharan Africa has over 600 million people without energy access (Photo Courtesy: Solar Sister, 2011)

Woman in Uganda selling roasted corn by the light of her kerosene lamp; (Photo Courtesy: Solar Sister, 2011)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has determined that individuals breathing kerosene fumes and soot inhale the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. This can cause asthma, bronchitis, tuberculosis, heart disease and lung cancer. Every year there are 1.6 million deaths due to indoor air pollution – that is one life lost every 20 seconds. The health of the planet also suffers from green house gas (GHG) emissions and black soot from kerosene lanterns – emitting smoke equivalent to 30 million cars into the atmosphere every single year!

The goods news is that there is light, hope and opportunity in the form of a new kind of clean energy revolution led by Solar Sister, an innovative social enterprise which combines the breakthrough potential of portable solar technology with a woman-driven direct sales network to help displace the use of kerosene and candles.Solar Sister won United Nations Environmental Program’s 2011 SEED Award in recognition of its commitment to build local green economy in Africa.

Solar Sister provides women in Africa with solar ‘business in a bag’: a start-up kit with an inventory of portable solar products, training and marketing support. This includes Solar Sister branded t-shirts, bags and record keeping notebooks. Solar Sister Entrepreneurs use their real world social networks – friends, neighbors, and family, local markets to sell the affordable and high quality solar products to their communities. Besides light, they sell solar cell phone and radio chargers so families and businesses can stay connected. Solar Sister Entrepreneurs earn a commission on each sale they make and their communities have the life transforming clean energy technology at their doorsteps. Since 2010, Solar Sister has trained 132 rural African women as solar change makers bringing light to over 13,000 people.

One Solar Sister at a time - Spreading light, hope and opportunity in Africa. See Solar Sister’s introductory video on YouTube. (Photo and Video Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

One Solar Sister at a time - Spreading light, hope and opportunity in Africa. See Solar Sister’s introductory video on YouTube. (Photo and Video Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

This access to solar power improves the health and well being of communities both by displacing kerosene use and by improving their connectivity. For example, diabetic patient Mama Norah of Budaali Village in Uganda used to walk for more than two kilometers each way to have her phone charged. On days that she could not charge her phone, she would fear her fate in case of an emergency.

Solar Sister Entrepreneurs sell life transforming portable solar products using their social networks (Photo Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

Solar Sister Entrepreneurs sell life transforming portable solar products using their social networks (Photo Credits: Solar Sister, 2011)

Then one day, Mama Norah bought a solar lamp with a mobile phone charger from a Solar Sister Entrepreneur. She now says, “I no longer have to pay for phone charging, I just put the solar panel on my roof and connect my phone to the lamp and it is charged, it is a miracle that has put my heart to rest.” Solar Sister has not only brought light to Mama Norah, but also connectivity that may save her life one day. Join Solar Sister in spreading light, hope and opportunity.

 

These posts are written by Neha Misra, the Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister.  You can follow her on Twitter at @LightSolar.

Join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Learn more at www.solarsister.org