Tag Archives: Africa

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

Youth Activists in Africa

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Map of Africa showing climate vulnerability (Courtesy of Delphine Digout, Revised by Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal. http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/climate_change_vulnerability_)

Map of Africa showing climate vulnerability (Courtesy of Delphine Digout, Revised by Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal. http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/climate_change_vulnerability_)

This week the blog will cover climate change in Africa, including the efforts of youth organizations. This week-long focus on Africa will lead us into the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which takes place in Durban, South Africa from November 28th-Decemer 9th. Next week we will tell you all about the incredibly exciting COP17 coverage we will have for you here on the blog, as well as on our Facebook page and Twitter (@ClimateUSGov) including guest blogs by youth delegates from SustainUS, members of the Rainforest Partnership, and live interactive web-chat programs with experts at Durban on a variety of climate-change related topics including agriculture and women and children.

Three incredibly active youth organizations are the Africa Youth Initiative on Climate Change (AYICC), the Nigerian Youth Climate Coalition, and the South African Climate Change Youth Ambassadors.

AYICC was conceived in 2006 in Nairobi, Kenya during the second international Conference of Youth before COP12. It was established to connect African youth in order to take action and make an impact on issues of climate change on country, regional, and continent-wide scales. AYICC has 42 country chapters, including Kenya, which has its own website.

There is a whole section of the AYICC website devoted to COP17. If you are interested in information about how to participate in youth activities during COP, there is information on applications, open positions, deadlines, etc.

The Nigerian Youth Climate Coalition (NYCC) has a site that connects youth from all over Nigeria (and several from around the world) and allows them to share stories, messages of hope, photos, and information on events and workshops. There are even blog posts about COP17 from an African youth perspective.

The South African Climate Change Youth Ambassadors are three young people passionate about environmental issues chosen to represent South Africans at the Conference of Youth (COY7) before COP17. These youth will continue to work all over Africa after the conference finishes in early December, educating people about climate change issues and working with them on local action initiatives. In the weeks preceding COP17 and COY7 however, they are focused squarely on the conferences and what they hope to come out of them.

One of the youth ambassadors, 29 year old Aluwani Nemukulu from Limpopo, attends Durban University of Technology as a Biotechnology student. He talks about why we need youth involved in combating climate change: “The change in sea levels and climate patterns is affecting the African natural biodiversity. There is a need for youth engagement in preservation, protection of our natural resources and biodiversity in Africa to ensure food security and the prevention of extinction of our indigenous plant and animal species.”

If you are interested in any of these organizations, the links provided above take you to the websites, where you will find their contact information.