pv

Solar provider in landmark African charity bid

A charity and a thriving solar business are seeking to light up the lives of schoolchildren in Malawi with the aim of providing power to 15,000 people and creating the first solar powered community in Africa.
Solar provider in landmark African charity bid

Together they say the £100,000 campaign will help businesses to flourish, create jobs, and enable Malawians to extend the length of their day, which still ends with natural light.

The campaign, in the bicentenary year of the birth of one of Malawi's most famous adopted sons, Scots explorer David Livingstone, is an ambitious extension of a successful operation last year.

The two organisations - Spirit Aid and Renewable Resources - joined forces then when the New Lanark headquartered company installed solar panels to produce the power and also donated laptop computers to facilitate internet access.

The installation took place at a local school in Mphata-Milonde, Malawi. Eleven panels were attached to batteries in order to power the school as a stand-alone building without access to a grid connection.

Now the two organisations are extending the project to ‘light up' the entire village and its surrounding areas.

Spirit Aid is a humanitarian relief organisation founded by film and TV actor David Hayman. He said: "We want to create a centre of excellence. Not only will it extend the length of their day beyond 6pm, it will extend their social life and everything that goes with that."

Solar light and internet access would also improve the educational lot of what was to all intents and purposes still a ‘bush community', he said, and part of the plan was to set an infrastructure in place to educate the children to become future teachers and other professionals and train future solar engineers.

Renewable Resources is also based in Milton Keynes. Its chief executive Paul Gribben personally oversaw the installation of the initial panels and said it was the company's duty as a responsible, environmentally-aware organisation to give something back.

"This project is part of our commitment to use solar power to enhance the quality of people's lives and also for the improvement to the planet and just to see the look on the children's faces made all the effort worthwhile," he said. "There is also a natural synergy with that part of Africa as the closest large city is Blantyre, named in honour of the explorer David Livingstone, himself a son of Lanarkshire.

"Now we want to take it to the next stage and to create our village of light in darkest Africa. It is a shining example of what modern technology can do to and how it can improve people's lives," he added.

Spirit Aid has been working in partnership with the community of Milonde, Malawi for the last four years. The organisation has initiated a Feeding Programme for High School Pupils which feeds 500 pupils every school day.

Since the start of the programme the school role has doubled to 500 and teaching staff have doubled to eight. The exam pass marks have also rocketed from 12 percent to 96 percent and the school is now the highest achieving school in Mulanje District and one of the highest in Malawi.

"Eleven graduates are now working as primary teachers in the community, two are police officers, two are Health and Welfare Inspectors and one is a Midwife. It is a wonderful success story in the heart of the African Bush," David Hayman said:

"Spirit Aid also runs seven pre-school nurseries, and each nursery has up to 150 children who are fed a bowl of porridge each day and are given lessons in Chichewa, English, Arithmetic and singing and dancing.

"The installation of the Solar Power Panels will Enable Spirit Aid to further develop the potential of the community and the opportunities for all the Young People of Milonde. It is a wonderful initiative and Spirit Aid is delighted and honoured to be in partnership with Renewable Resources to whom we are very grateful," he continued.

"The Solar Power will enable us to eventually provide computers to the High School so that these young people can learn IT skills to complement their extraordinary academic pass results which will offer them exceptional opportunities to follow a career and lift themselves and their families out of poverty," he said.

For additional information:

Just Giving

Tags: Solar , Africa , Grid , Jobs
Baterías con premio en la gran feria europea del almacenamiento de energía
El jurado de la feria ees (la gran feria europea de las baterías y los sistemas acumuladores de energía) ya ha seleccionado los productos y soluciones innovadoras que aspiran, como finalistas, al gran premio ees 2021. Independientemente de cuál o cuáles sean las candidaturas ganadoras, la sola inclusión en este exquisito grupo VIP constituye todo un éxito para las empresas. A continuación, los diez finalistas 2021 de los ees Award (ees es una de las cuatro ferias que integran el gran evento anual europeo del sector de la energía, The smarter E).