After our Global Leadership Program this summer, we were contacted by Burro. They are no longer going to carry the beloved lanterns we have been using at Saha’s solar charging businesses. The durability, price, availability and the fact that they are battery-operated are just a few of the reasons why we and, most importantly, the consumers love these lanterns, so we were sad to see them go. 

Here’s where Saha’s relationship with our suppliers comes in. The great thing about our local suppliers like Burro is that we have built a solid partnership. When Burro decided not to carry this lantern model, they  began researching a new product that could meet our lantern requirements. Now we will hand it over to guest blogger Jacob McEntire, an Electrical Engineer at Burro, who researched and found a new lantern fit for Saha!

Finding good quality products isn’t always easy, so when Saha reached out to my employer to for recommendations on battery lights, I was happy to lend a hand. The challenge was to find a light that was not only powerful and long-lasting, but could stand up to the rigors of everyday use in Ghana. It didn’t make the process easier that their clients’ needs necessitated an inexpensive choice; rather than browsing the cream of the crop, our mission was to pluck a gem from the bottom of the barrel.

Faced with an order of 75 assorted battery lights that we had ordered for testing, as well as a kerosene lantern that had somehow snuck into the shipment, my partner Edmond and I began by sorting them into categories. Some of the products (headlamps, torchlights, desk lamps, etc.) were instantly nixed, progressing the remaining 15 or so to the next round: drop testing. Since Saha emphasized a need for durability, we began by dropping the products four feet onto the stone floor of the workshop. Some failed completely at this point, some flickered but soldiered on, and a few didn’t even dim. We also did some initial battery testing at this stage; turning on the lights and running them until they ran out of battery. Lights that survived the drop-testing and had long enough battery life enough to be useful continued on to the final round of testing, where we examined their light output more carefully.

During our exploration of these products, we discovered how tricky it can be to quantify their light emission. Battery life seemed the most important factor after durability, but there’s a lot that battery life doesn’t tell us. As a light shines, it constantly saps the voltage of its batteries, which in turn decreases the intensity of the light. As anyone who owns a flashlight knows, this means that battery lights will get dimmer over time. Our goal with this final round of tests was to quantify that time: how quickly do these lights dim? At what point do we consider them too dim to be useful?

With a little finagling, we converted our workshop into a makeshift darkroom. Combining this with a luxmeter iPhone app, a stopwatch, and diligent data-gathering, we produced a set of curves describing the light output of each of our final three candidates. Exciting! Armed with this knowledge, we settled on our final recommendation: the KNP-W01331NR. It combines strong light output and good battery life with an extreme resistance to physical shocks. As you can see from the picture below, the light was designed with endurance in mind: its rubberized casing and thick joints minimize damage from falls and knocks, and its lack of sharp edges distributes any stress more evenly across the body, lessening wear.

For the very first time we will be offering the opportunity to join our fellowship program for the implementation of a solar project! This Fall you will be given the choice whether you want to implement a solar charging station or a water treatment center. 

The 2014 Fall Fellowship will be a two week program and take place from November 4th to 19th. Orientation will take place stateside via webinar allowing our fellows to hit the ground running! We accept fellows on a rolling basis and encourage you to apply early! The deadline for the Fall Fellowship is August 18th! 

We are beyond excited to offer this opportunity! If you have any additional questions, please contact Sam at [email protected]

This is my first official post as Ghana Country Director and what an exciting time it is to be updating everyone following the CWS blog on what we’ve been up to since the 2014 Summer fellows left.

Thanks to the fellows, CWS has opened water treatment businesses in eleven more communities: Original Kabache, Sabonjida, Janakpam, Manguli II, Wuvogu, Wuvogumani, Changyili, Jangbarayili, Balamposo, Kagbal, and Sagbarigu, as well as set up a solar business in Yapalsi. This brings the total number of communities we are working in to 71! In addition to the newly established water and solar businesses, nine villages are now independent: Tijo, Tindun, Libi, Changashi, Kpenchila, Nyamaliga, Buja, Kushini, and Zanzugu. At Community Water Solutions, self-sufficiency is our end goal in the communities where we work. Data collected over the years of household visits we have done since the inception of these businesses has shown that the centers have been up and running and community members have purchased water at the center on consistent bases. The staff at CWS will still monitor and assist the women entrepreneurs to ensure the centers continue to run successfully, but we are proud to add them to our list of 23 total independent villages!

On the monitoring side of operations, going to the field this week with Amin, Shak, Wahab, and Eric has been a lot of fun. Figuring out the logistics of integrating our new communities into our existing monitoring schedules was challenging, but the guys have done an amazing job with handling the extra responsibility. Having heard so much from the fellows about the women and community members, I was really eager to go and see the new centers for myself! On Monday, Amin and I went to Jakapam, Manguli II, Wuvogu, and Wuvogumani. While the fellows were still here monitoring in their villages after opening day, community members of Janakpam had made it known during household visits that they felt the water tasted too strongly of alum, the chemical the women use in the first stage of treatment. This is typically a learning process when centers are first established; it is not an easy task to ensure an appropriate amount of alum is used to treat the turbidity of the water while also meeting the taste preferences of consumers. When the women heard of this, they wasted no time coming up with a creative solution: adding water from the polytank to the dugout water in the blue drums so that the alum would settle, then adding one chlorine tablet per blue drum scooped in to the polytank. This worked for the water they sold during the first days after the center opened and by the time Amin and I came to speak with the women on Monday, the problem had been completely fixed and community members no longer had any complaints about the taste of the water.

While monitoring with Eric on Wednesday, Arasheitu, one of the entrepreneurs running the business in Kagbal, joined us for household visits. As a way to gauge our efforts to educate community members on the health benefits of drinking clean water, one of the questions we ask households when monitoring is, “Do you know why dugout water is unsafe to drink?” Anytime we asked this question and a community member would respond with, “No,” Arasheitu stepped in to explain why dugout water was unsafe to drink and the negative implications it has for health. Community members also told Eric and I that Arasheitu and her colleagues at the center, Adamu and Sanatu, were teaching people how to collect rainwater properly and reminding people to come and refill at the center with their safety storage containers on a regular basis. It was really amazing to see the level of Arasheitu’s initiative and her enthusiasm for helping her community. Eric and I also lucked out because one of the women in Kagbal had recently given birth to a baby boy and community members were celebrating the naming ceremony. Thanks to the CWS fellows and the women of Kagbal hard at work running the treatment center, this new addition to the community, Abrahim, will always have the option of clean drinking water. That is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job as Ghana Country Director.

I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting and interacting with the entrepreneurs and community members of the newly established treatment centers. As with all of the entrepreneurs we work with, these women are creative, kind, and devoted to improving the lives and health of the members of their communities. Their level of enthusiasm for running the treatment centers and the amount of hard work they put in to make sure their community has the option of clean drinking water never ceases to amaze me. I look forward to working with them during my time as Ghana Country Director.