Entrepreneurs will supplement their income through the sale of mobile 'talk time'. Watch this space as we develop this idea further and for more interesting solar developments in Zambia.

The new mobile phone charging station which has been developmed in Zambia for small businesses.

Trevor told us about a teacher he recently met; a real gem as far as SolarAid is concerned. The teacher is called Charles. He is one of our key contacts for SolarAid's micro-franchise work in Zambia.

Charles, who is based in the Eastern provinces, bordering Mozambique and Malawi, has been working with the village Chief, Jerry. Chief Jerry is another key member of the community, who is passionate about giving as much back to his community as he can. Unlike some Chiefs in Zambia and across Africa - he is not interested in self-promotion. This Chief puts his community first and foremost.

Community builders
Charles and the Chief are working together to build a school. They hope to work with SolarAid to install a small solar system on the school for lighting. Close to the school, there is a primary care community clinic. This clinic is extremely basic with no running water. As a result, hygiene standards are very low. Sadly, the lack of water is a very common problem in rural clinics such as this one.

Charles, the Chief and Trevor have been discussing the possibility of building a solar-powered water pump between the school and the clinic, servicing the two buildings, with one water tank for each. The team also hope to fit a solar system directly onto the clinic to power a vaccine fridge.

Meeting the needs of the remotest communities
The school and the clinic are about 18K apart. Although this may sound like a sizable distance, it is important to understand the level of isolation of these communities. Both the school and the clinic are more than 80K (about 50 miles) away from the nearest mains power supply. That's pretty remote. And with poor soil quality, little rain fall and terrible road networks; there is little opportunity for these communities to generate income. But with solar, things could change.

Product testing
A product will be arriving in country soon for thorough testing amongst our micro-franchisees. This is a new product with multi-functional capabilities. It will be able to charge mobile phones, power LED lights and potentially a radio. The testing will take place over a 12 week period. Our franchisees participating in the testing process will keep a log of how they used the products, the benefits, disadvantages, faults and usability. At the end of assessment, our franchisees will complete a questionnaire which will give them an opportunity to express their views and decide if the product is viable and ready for the market.

Reaching remote areas with solar on wheels
The Zambia team hopes to experiment with macro-solar in a number of ways in the near future. One avenue being explored is the use of smaller panels used on portable charging and power providers.

The picture above shows the 'Solar Roller' developed by Firefly Solar and SolarAid together. This product was designed for UK events to offer solar-powered phone charging to members of the public as part of a fund and awareness-raising exercise. There is hope to further develop this product for use in Zambia and beyond, as a means of bringing power to very rural areas. Watch this space!

Some ways in which the panels are helping to generate income for the communities are through mobile phone charging and the selling of tickets for film screenings on DVD. This income is vital to the schools as it gives them a much-needed cash injection to buy ingredients for the childrens' lunches.

In fact, the last two weeks have gone a long way, with ten new franchisees trained and in operation with micro-solar products. Some of the roadblocks in the micro-franchisee training has been dealing with illiteracy and suspected dyslexia. Our teachers are giving those with difficulties extra attention and helping them. We are currently updating our training material to make it more understandable with the use of more visuals.

With the first year targets having now been achieved, we are re-evaluating our macro-solar programme to see how we can reach more schools and communities in the second year. We need funds to increase the number of people we can reach, so please support us today.

Thank you

As we drove on, George described some of the work that children can become involved in:

"Children as young as 5 years old start on 'cultivation' - that's preparing seedlings for planting. And 'waiting' - carrying seedlings for transplant into the fields. As they get older, they take on heavier work such as weeding and spraying, usually with no protection".

But children can find themselves in the fields well before their fifth birthday. Further along the track, women were spraying the tobacco plants with pesticides, their babies tied onto their backs, exposing both to dangerous chemicals. "They have no choice, but no one seems to really care" George continued.

HODI's work with SolarAid is part of 'Phase One' of their ECLT programme, which aims to address the effects and impacts of the use of child labour. Making access to education as easy as possible is key. And SolarAid is helping HODI to achieve this by installing solar power systems on a number of schools and training centres in the area. Tara Basic School and Kalonda Basic School are two of the five sites that were identified by HODI and SolarAid in August 2008. Both schools were fitted with solar installations early in November 2008 and teachers and pupils there are starting to understand the benefits that these systems can bring.

At the Tara Basic School, headmistress Fay Mabulo explained how the two classrooms lit by solar power are being used by teachers for lesson preparation as well as being made available to pupils for evening study between seven and eight o'clock. The lights are so popular that the school has now drawn up a timetable for their use to make sure that as many people as possible have access.

Andy Bodycombe

Photos: Andy Bodycombe

TOP: Pupils of Tara Basic School in Zambia work under the light which is powered by solar.

RIGHT: A pupil stands outside Kalonda School in Zambia which, like Tara Basic School, recently had a macro-solar system installsed on the roof.

Halfway between Choma and Kalondo, on the main road between Lusaka and Livingstone, a huge white stone sign declares 'education is a tool in life'. An older sign lays crumbling in its shadow but the bright new marker points to the start of the 4km dirt road towards the 'Tara Basic School'.

I was being driven by George Hamasunga, a programme manager with the Zambian NGO 'HODI', to see two examples of the work they were doing with SolarAid in the southern districts of Choma and Kalondo.

George has been based in Choma with HODI for three years, after working for six years in Lusaka at the Ministry of Finance and, more recently, on EU-funded micro-projects.

George's new home area is also home to a large number of small to medium sized tobacco farms. As we drove towards the Tara school, George explained why HODI were focussing on the region. He manages HODI's work under the 'ECLT' programme: the Elimination of Child Labour in Tobacco farming. The Switzerland-based foundation's members include well-known and infamous names such as Alliance One, British American Tobacco and Universal Leaf. Its simple aim - to combat the use of child labour in tobacco growing.

As we continued along the dirt track, partly flooded from the continuing heavy rains, George pointed out a young boy working in a field near the track, pulling up weeds from between the large leafed tobacco plants. He stopped the car and called over one of the labourers working in the same field. He asked the man if he knew the boy's parents and whether the boy was attending school. Not a lecture, but an example of HODI's well-practiced gentle pressure aimed at raising awareness of the importance of education.

More from me soon,
Andy Bodycombe.

Photos: Andy Bodycombe

The 'Pumulani' Renewable Energy Centre ('Pumulani' means 'rest well') is the idea of Gerde and Laureijs Smulders, co-founders and directors of Suntech Appropriate Technology Ltd, a renewable energy company established in Zambia since 1993.

Gerde (left) and Lawrence Smulders of Suntech, stand beneath the steel frame and roof that will be the 'Pumulani Renewable Energy Training Centre'. Photo: Andy Bodycombe

Over the past year, Suntech have been working with SolarAid in Zambia on the design and installation of solar installations on schools, community centres and clinics as part of SolarAid's Global Cool funded macrosolar programme.

Suntech's experience of working in Zambia is extremely valuable to SolarAid and highlights one of the key challenges we face that all too often, solar power systems installed in developing countries by donor organisations can be perceived as unreliable. According to Gerde 'every solar system which doesn't work is bad for us even if it wasn't from us. We just want to save costs for the people'.

Suntech hope to address these problems by tackling them head on and, at the same time, addressing some of the root causes.

More about this in our next blog

Two locations for macro installations have recently been identified as Chipata- near the Malawian border- and Infuro. The new sites within these areas will include schools, community and training centres. Things should start moving quickly now, with a proposed seven installations scheduled for completion by the end of May!

Rural Zambia

In micro-solar, the team is waiting for a large import order of 2000 products to arrive. Once these are on the ground, production and training will start in Shesheke- a very poor and remote area in the South West of Zambia.

WIth your help, SolarAid can work effectively towards faster reduction of carbon emissions, improved health for the most disadvantaged people of Zambia and increased literacy rates through access to clean and affordable lighting. Please help us with whatever donation you can.

Thank you.

More news from Zambia soon.

Trevor Robson, SolarAid Zambia's new Country Business Manager

Over the last few weeks, Trevor has been travelling around south western Zambia identifying possible areas that are well-suited to setting up micro-solar projects.

One area in particular, Sesheke- near the border with Namibia- seems to have a particular need for such a project. Like many rural areas in Zambia, it is far away from any connection to grid power; it's very poor and incredibly remote. Food production is very seasonal a therefore so is the average income.

Together with SolarAid's photojournalist, Andy Bodycombe, Trevor has also been revisiting sites in the Choma region where we have previously installed macro-solar panels on schools and skills centre. All of the installations are fully-functional and servicing the respective communities very well.

As a new member of the team, Trevor has been impressed to see SolarAid's ability to reach into rural and remote areas, leaving a long-lasting and sustainable impact.

More from the Zambia team soon!

Our team of eight, recently recruited in Mumbwa.

The team are all technically competant and see strong potential in microsolar in their region, Mumbwa. They have some business experience (including sourcing of materials and product distribution) and the best part is they seem really eager to develop a micro-solar businesses!

Three of the eight partipants make up Felix's carpentary workshop, who have shown particular enthusiasm and excitement about expanding into microsolar.

Market research and product tests
During our field trip to Mumbwa, we carried out some basic micro-solar market research on a number of lantern models and the product which had the most positive feedback was the 'made in Zambia' version!

Lantern line-up! SolarAid Zambia's own model is the second from the left

We also did some basic product quality testing, and the guys conducted overnight tests on all models. Again, it was the 'made in Zambia' product which produced the best quality and intensity of light. There is, of course, still room for improvement with our current prototype but it's great to know we're heading along the right path!

Get involved
Be part of the solar movement! Please support us in our mission to help some of the poorest people in Zambia to have affordable, clean energy and help them generate their own income at the same time.

Our team of entrepreneurs test the products in the dark.

Felix assembles a solar lantern from locally sourced materials during a microsolar production workshop in Mumbwa.

His parents and older brothers have passed away, leaving Felix as head of a ten-person household. Felix is a self-employed carpenter and joiner, and also dabbles in brick-laying and painting.

Together with some friends he runs a carpentry business in town, and produces "anything" in wood for his customers - including double beds. The question was begging.... "How do you distribute a double bed to your customers who live many kilometres away in rural villages?" The answer is simple: on a wheelbarrow.

From left to right: Brian, Felix and Adonjah in their carpentry workshop discussing ideas about expanding into the microsolar business.

Felix's carpentry workshop, now in its third year, is typical of millions of small businesses in Africa: with no access to capital, limited tools and facilities, and bucket loads of gumption - somehow the business gets done.

During my six-month assignment in Zambia, one of the key challenges put to me has been to "find a distribution strategy for micro-solar products in rural Zambia". When I think of Felix distributing his double beds by wheelbarrow - it occurs to me that Felix is probably far better placed than I am to answer this crucial question for SolarAid.

Lackson, Reagan and Felix test connections and charge their solar lanterns with the solar panels that they just assembled during the workshop.

Felix has been trained to assemble solar panels and simple solar lanterns (which are made from locally available materials such as wood and plastic sewerage pipe). Now, with access to imported components - such as 1.8 watt solar panels, LEDs, diodes and resistors - Felix and his colleagues are eager to expand their business into microsolar, producing solar panels and solar lanterns for the rural market which is currently dependent on candles and kerosene for lighting. Felix is optimistic about market potential for microsolar:

"Many people like the wooden lamp that we made because it's strong and hard, and it has bright light".

Sisters from Rehoboth Orphanage, Mkushi.

The sister in charge of the orphanage, Sister Prudence (seated third from the left), showed us how the solar systems installed five years ago were not working as expected.

Abel and I went to the orphanage (which has more than 200 children) and found that it was actually the lack of cleaning of panels which had led to the problem. We quickly showed one of the boys at the orphanage how the cleaning is done.

I'm pleased to say that after two weeks, we contacted Sister Prudence and she was all smiles as she confirmed that the problem was no more!

More from Zambia soon!
Emmanuel

Our basic idea is to create jobs in Zambia - not in China. It was a pleasure to spend some time with small business owner, Mr Ginnis Moono, in order to better understand the joys and tribulations of being a small business entrepreneur in rural Africa.

Sharing ideas. Janelle talks with Mr Ginnis Moono about his business highs and lows. Next month Ginnis will be one of ten microsolar trainees in Fiwila to receive training from SolarAid in micro-solar technologies.

Following is a brief summary of Ginnis' story, as he told it to me:

I'm 38 years old, live in Fiwila, and am supporting a household of eight people: four children of my own, a niece and a nephew, plus my wife and myself. I'm of the Tonga tribe: my father - who was a policeman - was from Choma in the south of Zambia, but I was born in Kabwe. I own a small shop selling everything from tiny portions of cooking oil and fresh eggs to candles and shoes. There are five shops in this area, including mine.

Open for business. Through sheer determination and the ability to overcome numerous obstacles over the past eleven years, Ginnis' general store, in remote rural Zambia, now enjoys sales turnover of more than £24,000 per year.
.

I started my business in 1997. The first year it was basic farming. Most of the people here are subsistence farmers, and harvest is in June or July. I farmed maize and sold it in the local market. With the money I made from this, I decided to start trading in fish. It meant cycling along dirt tracks on my bicycle to the river - which is 68 kilometres away. It took almost the whole day to get there. I'd leave at six in the morning, and be there by 2pm. I bought fresh fish directly from the fishermen - big and small fish, perhaps around 50kg of fish in total - and then I'd hop on my bike with the load of fish and cycle back home again. We like to eat dried fish in Zambia, so I had to dry the fish on my return. It was all a lot of work, but there was a good market (need) for fish here - and no one else was offering it - so slowly I built up my business and was able to put aside some capital.

Next I expanded into groceries (including continuing with the dried fish), and this is pretty much where I am today. My customers are the people who live around here (and sometimes even visitors like you). I sell lots of batteries, for radios mostly. Probably every household here would have a radio.

Battery sales are good. Ginnis sells about 50 large and 10 small batteries each week. The most common usage is for radios.

For my customers' lighting I sell candles and kerosene (paraffin), although for months now there has been no kerosene at all as the costs have become too high, and supplies have dried up. Some people are travelling to Mkushi (about 66 kilometres away) in order to buy their kerosene, but now I concentrate more on candles. Many of my customers will come in daily to buy two or three candles for that night. I sell candles for 500 Kwacha each (about 8p), or a packet of twelve for 5,000 Kwacha (80p). Candles are now a cheaper source of light than kerosene: one litre of kerosene can cost between 7,000 and 8,000 Kwacha (£1.30), and on top of that you now have to add the cost of travelling to Mkushi.

With kerosene in short supply, candles are now the most common form of lighting in Fiwila.

I know that some people around here are using diesel in their lanterns - those that don't mind reducing their life span! Lighting is always a problem: candles, kerosene, diesel and batteries are all expensive. I'm sure that there is a strong market here for the micro-solar products that you've shown me - especially the solar lanterns. Even for the simple solar mobile phone recharger, I know that my customers will want to buy them. Most people around here are farmers: they could be out working in their fields while charging their phone. The solar panel is so light and simple, and it would save them time and money. Currently the fee to recharge a mobile telephone is 2,000 Kwacha (30p), and it takes about 3 hours.

When I need to restock my shop, I cycle to Masansa (28 kilometres away), make a booking to hire a 3-tonne truck, then cycle home. It costs 1.5 million Kwacha (£240) to hire a truck for the day, and on top of that I have to add the cost of petrol - currently around 9,000 Kwacha per litre (£1.40). I hire the truck for one full day: midnight to midnight. The afternoon before going to Lusaka, I again cycle to Masansa, then start off in the truck right on midnight. I drive, and either my wife or my teenaged nephew accompanies me. We usually arrive in Lusaka at around 6am. Then it's a full eight hours of running around Lusaka, buying stock for the shop. I buy wholesale, mostly from the Kamala town centre and city market. At 5pm we set off from Lusaka so that we can be back in Masansa on time to return the truck just before midnight. On average I would purchase around 14 million Kwacha (about £2,000) worth of stock in one of these trips, and probably do about eight such trips a year. Originally I shared the costs of this trip with another shopkeeper, but now I'm generating enough business to do the trip alone. My four competitors (the nearby shops) follow this same procedure to obtain their stock.

The prices in my shop are reasonable. To give you an idea, one tin of fish costs me 2,800 Kwacha (45p) wholesale in Lusaka. I add on 200 Kwacha (3p) to cover transport costs and 500 Kwacha (8p) as profit. So my customers can buy it for 3,500 Kwacha (50p). [Janelle's note: we pay 3,950 Kwacha (54p) for the exact same product in Lusaka - where shopkeepers don't have to deal with such challenging supply chain issues]

A few weeks ago there was a theft in this area. They hit all of the five shops here. It's the first time to happen to me. I reported it to the police, but there is not much we can do, and of course there is no insurance. I lost about 1.3 million Kwacha (about £200) worth of stock.

Probably my biggest business challenge over the past eleven years has been lack of access to capital. Everything I've done, I've built up slowly myself. I've never seen the internet before, but I've heard that you can buy second-hand vehicles from Japan online. This is my goal for the future: to invest in a truck of my own. It will be much cheaper for me to collect stock from Lusaka, and I could rent the truck out to others when I'm not using it myself.

Success story
Ginnis Moono is living proof that Africans can build and manage successful businesses-despite being forced to overcome countless obstacles that we in the developing world do not even have to consider.

Ginnis' tale is a success story: for Ginnis, for his family and for the community that he serves. Arguably, the best solution to reducing Africa's spiralling poverty is through job creation and income generation (that is, income generated from productive economic output, not in receiving mere handouts). It is SolarAid's mission to do just that - by providing access to solar technologies through its micro-solar projects.

Ginnis Moono (far right) makes notes at a meeting to examine micro-solar products, discuss market needs, and make plans to rollout micro-solar production in Fiwila. This meeting, arranged by SolarAid and HODI, included some key representatives from the community.

Micro-solar training
Next month - deep in the remote Fiwila catchment area of Zambia's Mkushi district - SolarAid will be training a group of entrepreneurs in microsolar technology. This will include instruction on the assembly of small solar panels, conversion of mobile phone rechargers, and of course building simple and low-cost solar lanterns.

Ginnis Moono will be one of these trainees, and there is little doubt in my mind that he will quickly build up a successful microsolar business, providing employment for some, and significantly improving the lives of thousands of rural poor in his area by offering cheaper and cleaner sources of energy.

On a personal note - with my being fresh out of business school and armed with an MBA - it is rather humbling to talk with someone like Ginnis Moono. There is probably very little that I could teach this guy about business management.

Janelle Tisserand
MBAs Without Borders/SolarAid

We met Mrs Elizabeth Kabanga, wife of the Village Headman in the Chibanga community, which is located deep in the Fiwila catchment area (about 360 km north-east of the Zambian capital, Lusaka). Mrs Kabanga demonstrated her lantern (see picture to the right), giving us an idea of just how bad the thing smelt - and how poor the quality of light that it produced. "How do you expect us to read with this?" she asked.

This is exactly the type of foul smelling, highly polluting, inefficient, and expensive lighting source that we are trying to replace - with clean, simple solar lanterns.

Mrs Kabanga kindly presented the lantern to the SolarAid Zambia team, and it now sits in our office in Lusaka as a strong reminder of why we are here.

Janelle

(Photos by Jean-luc Tisserand)

Abel, Ben, me, Paul Simon (Global Cool Foundation) and Emmanuel, in Kabwe during site visits.

We arrived here in Kabwe last night after quite an epic series of journeys (totalling around 12 hours) which took us from Lusaka to see three separate institutions which our partners HODI have identified as possible macrosolar installation sites.

On our arrival at the hotel I asked the hotel receptionist 'How is Kabwe?' To which she replied 'in mourning'. She was referring to the fact that the late President Mwanawasa's body was in Kawbe today - he is being flown across the country to allow people to pay their respects.

Yesterday's trip first took us to the town of Masansa (4 -5 hours north of Lusaka) where we met up with Simon and Steven from HODI. Masansa is quite a lively market town as it's the last settlement which is served by the electricity grid in these parts of the world - so it serves as a natural hub of services for the sometimes quite distant surrounding rural areas.

From here we drove for about an hour to the village of Mulungwe which is situated in the Bulungi Hills - a particularly rural, but beautiful part of the world which in some ways reminded me of where I used to live in rural Tanzania. Here we visited the local school which was built back when England were celebrating football glory in the old Wembley stadium in the 60s and met with members of the local community.

Everyone was excited at the prospect of the school receiving a solar installation and they discussed how it would bring benefits such as lights for evening classes and lesson preparation, income generation activities through setting up a phone charging station and also the possibility of running a computer and television which could be used for education, entertainment and again as a way of generating an income which can be used to maintain the system.

Our stay here was all too brief and I would have loved to have spent a day or two getting to know the area and its people better - next time!

Next we headed to Fiwila and the Fiwila Development Trust, a local NGO which was set up to serve the local community. Here we witnessed a lively debate about the area's energy needs and where they, as a community, would like to see solar installation. The results of this discussion were this:

'Our local clinic already has a solar system for some lights and a refrigerator, although ideally we would like a bigger, more powerful, system there. Our local school would also really benefit from a lighting system - as we all would in our homes. If a system in installed at the Fiwila Development Trust Facilities, however, we can use this system to generate an income and save so that we can pay for a school system and perhaps an upgraded clinic system in the future.'

This line of thinking is completely in line with recent programmes discussions we have been having. Macrosolar systems can be introduced as part of a 'solar challenge' which involves setting income-generation targets which can be used to meet 'solar expansion targets,' thus starting solar energy revolutions in each community.

Power is Free!

We'll do all we can at SolarAid to help the people of Fiwila and elsewhere realise these dreams. Any donations we get from people like you, who are reading this blog and interested in helping, will get us closer to realising those dreams.

Thanks,
John.