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Voices from the Field: The Solar Fellows! (Linda, Lucas, Nick & Sarah)

Hi Everyone! It’s the Solar Fellows here again with an update from Yapalsi!

With the help of the community, we finished building and painting the solar charging center in Yapalsi. It was really inspirational to see everyone excited about the center and working with us. Each time we left the village for the day, we would return the next day to find that the community had completed yet another section of the center. Their enthusiasm became our source of motivation.

The community helps us add the last cement bricks to the foundation.
The community helps us add the last cement bricks to the foundation.
Lucas and the masons plaster the solar center.
Lucas and the masons plaster the solar center.
 Nick paints those hard to reach spots on the solar center
Nick paints those hard to reach spots on the solar center
Lucas and Linda paint the door of the solar center
Lucas and Linda paint the door of the solar center

Over the past few days, we have been working with Sana, Shetu, and Rahina, the three entrepreneurs who are have been running the water center and now the solar charging center. After we taught them how to connect the solar panels to the microcontroller, battery, and inverter, the women connected the components of the system together and the solar center works!

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Rahina connects the wiring of the solar panels.
Sana learns to connect the solar panels wires to the microcontroller.
Sana learns to connect the solar panels wires to the microcontroller.

We then explained how to calculate the maximum wattage that they could connect to the center.  Prior to teaching them that each cell phone uses 5 Watts while a full battery charger uses 14 Watts, we worried that the women would have trouble with the math, as they had never gone to school before. However, Sana, Shetu, and Rahina completely surpassed our expectations with their exceptional mental math ability.

Linda explains to the women how to connect the batteries and chargers.
Linda explains to the women how to connect the batteries and chargers.

During training, many people from Yapalsi were curious about how to connect the system and how the solar center would work.  A large crowd gathered outside during training, but after the Friday rain, most Yapalsians began farming, and the final day of training proved to be much quieter and more efficient.
After the solar center construction and training, we went to each and every household to distribute Burro lanterns and explain how to use them. We also explained how they would be able to buy fully charged batteries at the solar center to light their lantern and drop them off when they were out of charge. They were also extremely excited to be able to charge their cell phones for the first time in their village. Previously, they had been travelling to Savelugu a few kilometers away to pay someone to charge their phone. Picking them up usually meant returning to a swapped battery, missing SIM card, or worse a stolen phone. We really hope that the solar center will prove to be a major convenience and improvement for their lives. We finished our last day of distribution today with Linda and Sarah painting CWS’ logo onto the solar center! Tomorrow night is the grand opening of the solar center and we cannot wait! We shall update you soon!

-Linda, Lucas, Nick, and Sarah

Nick demonstrates how to open and close the Burro lantern
Nick demonstrates how to open and close the Burro lantern
Lucas visits a household to explain the rechargeable lantern program.
Lucas visits a household to explain the rechargeable lantern program.

 

Voices from the Field: Team Peter!

Community Meeting
Elders gather for the Chief Meeting in Sabonjida

Hey everyone! It’s team Peter here today. We are Josh, Camille, Brandee, and Claire. We’ve been braving the “road” to Sabonjida for four days, picking up pedestrians and hoping we don’t get a flat. The journey is about an hour and fifteen minutes each way, and despite the quotation marks around road, not too bad of a trip except a stretch where rain runoff exposed the bedrock.

Once we get in to Sabonjida the view of the lake and surrounding countryside is well worth braving the road. Sabonjida is a fishing community of about 70 households on the northern coast of Lake Volta. The majority of the people speak Ewe as their first language, but we communicate with them through Peter in Twi. On our first day in the village we met Clint and Haley of Mercy Project.   They first called CWS’s attention to Sabonjida as a village in need of clean water. They have been working in Sabonjida to address the root causes of child slavery on Lake Volta. You can read more about their approach and what they’re all about on their website.

Women seeing blue drums
The newly selected women  check out the 200 L blue drums they will use to treat Lake water with alum!

The first person we met when we got into the village was Mercy.   She has shown us abundant hospitality each time we visit, offering food, bringing us chairs and being helpful in any way she can. In addition, she has had a very strong presence in all the meetings with community leaders. This makes us very optimistic for the future of Sabonjida, as she will be one of the four women running the water treatment center there. The other three women the community selected are Florence, Mary, and Elizabeth. We look forward to getting to know them better when we train them over the next few days. One thing that was disconcerting to see was during the community meeting when a woman had a question she initially addressed one of the men. Since they were speaking Ewe, a language Peter does not understand, it was hard for us to know whether it was legitimate question or if they were simply asking for clarification from a man sitting near them. After a little encouragement they began to speak up directly and we hope this trend continues as they see their friends in roles of power and respect within the community.

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Camille, Peter, Mercy, Mary, Florence and Elizabeth setting up the water treatment center. Lake Volta in the background!
Kenkey
Kenkey and fish (Peter’s fav) made by Mercy!

The concerns raised in the community meeting were largely centered on the nuances that come with living in a fishing community. One major concern was the mobility of the center given that Lake Volta is prone to flooding at the combined discretion of Mother Nature and the people in charge of regulating the dam that maintains it. We explained to them that their polytank would be lifted up on a metal stand that can be moved according to their needs. Another concern was the irregularity of their income. Since most of the community fishes they might not have cash on hand, even though they have plenty of fish in net. To address this concern we explained to them that the ladies running the center had the liberty to run the business whichever way is most conducive to getting everyone clean water.   In Tunga, a community we monitored on Wednesday, the woman entrepreneur had a system of giving out interest free credit or accepting payments in advance in order to give everyone access to clean water, and we relayed this idea along to them.

Peter
Peter hanging out in a fishing net hammock!
Fire buring
Brandee, Camille, Peter, Mercy, Florence, Elizabeth and Mary building a fire to heat up the screws in order to more easily screw them in to the plastic 200 L blue drums!

There was another unfortunate yet encouraging issue that came to light during the community meeting. There happened to be an old man from a neighboring community at the meeting who wanted to know why we were doing this project only for Sabonjida when the lake water is unhealthy for all the communities who drink it. We had to explain to him that although CWS aims to continue implementing clean water businesses all around Lake Volta, we unfortunately can only reach one community at a time. However, we were excited by his approval of our project and excitement for when CWS might reach his village. We were also very encouraged by the community’s questions about how they would access clean water while traveling, which preliminarily implies that they accept the idea of always drinking clean water when they are at home.

Our plan for the next two days is to train our four women to treat the water and become the entrepreneurs of the water center!