SolarAid is helping to improve adult literacy

At the Thyolo Tea Estate, a Fair Trade Co-operative in Southern Malawi, the largest adult literacy programme in the country has just started up, thanks to light from SolarAid products.

Thyolo Tea Estate. Photo by Katie Bliss

In an area with a very poor adult literacy rate, over 500 people - most of whom have never been able to read or write before - are now enthusiastically attending the Chawani Adult Literacy School. The evening classes held at the estate are lit by SolarAid's Kadzuwa and Muuni micro-solar products.

The classes attract all sorts of people from the surrounding areas. A lot of the participants are women of all ages (women are subject to the highest illiteracy rate in Malawi). There are some ladies as old as 82 years. Estate workers, teenagers and farmers also attend the classes. Regardless of their age or ability all attendees share a lust for learning.

Women at the evening literacy class at Chawani. Photo by Katie Bliss

Many have been deprived of the opportunity to learn until the introduction of SolarAid's micro-solar products. People could not afford to attend classes because the cost of buying the kerosene for the lighting was too high. Unlike kerosene, solar power is affordable and poses no health risks.

Excited women students brief SolarAid's Katie Bliss about their experiences with the micro-solar lights at their school. Photo by Fiskani Msutu

It is thanks to our supporters that these people in Southern Malawi now are enabled to learn and aquire skills that will lift them out of extreme poverty. All this from an affordable, bright and clean light.

If you support this project you will be helping to increase literacy as well as promote gender equality.

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Thank you.