News and views

Offset Solar’s commitment to SolarAid’s purpose

Offset Solar is an American solar company with a purpose. They were founded with a very similar belief to SolarAid: that everyone should have access to safe, clean, renewable power. Founded in 2017, Offset is now a key partner of SolarAid and supports our work by making a contribution to our fundraising for each solar […]

Empowering women in Malawi with solar

  In Malawi, women suffering from fistula are often ostracised from their communities. During the treatment period, at the Fistula Care Centre, women are introduced to various business ideas and are trained in business management to provide them with new skills and the ability to earn an income when they return to their communities. Freedom […]

Earth Hour 2018

What are you doing this Saturday 24 March from 8.30 until 9.30pm?  Whatever it is, make sure you put down your fork, hairbrush or remote control and switch your lights off for Earth Hour. Every year millions of people, businesses and landmarks set aside an hour to host events, switch off their lights and make […]

Stories from the field – Uganda

Our sales officers sometimes have to brave very poor roads to reach rural communities living far away from towns in Uganda. People in these remote villages often rely on kerosene for lighting and spend a lot of money on transport to travel to trading centres to buy kerosene which is very expensive for them. However, our sales officers do […]

Bella goes screen free for SolarAid!

Bella is one of our youngest SolarAid fundraisers, choosing to go screen free (no TV, phone, tablet or laptop!) for 2 whole days to help other children to do their homework with safe light. She set a target of £70 – to which she donated £5 of her own money – smashing that by raising […]

Malawi’s power cuts & SunnyMoney update

Anger boiled over after a national blackout, which saw babies dying in incubators, yet outages are frequent—for the lucky 10 percent of people with electricity in Malawi. Rural health worker Patrick Kamzitu is relaxed about the long and frequent power cuts that plague Malawi and which recently almost brought it to a halt when the […]

Solar light – the perfect partner for power cuts

At SolarAid our main focus is on getting solar lights to people in rural Africa, where there is no electricity. But people in African cities often suffer from similar frustrations because the African electricity grid is notoriously unreliable and, even in capital cities, daily rolling blackouts are a common occurrence. This week we heard from one […]

Never give up! The campaign for Divestment…

Twenty five years is a long time for an idea to come to fruition, but we finally got there: SolarAid’s partners Lloyd’s of London have agreed to divest from coal because of climate change. This is excellent news – but it comes a couple of decades too late. Our Founder and Chair, Jeremy Leggett, first presented the case for […]

Solar provides hope for girls in Tanzania

Cristina Westphal, one of our excellent supporters, has helped an NGO called Hope for Girls and Women get access to solar lighting to help SolarAid’s mission by supporting girls and women in Tanzania. Here she tells the story in her own words, explaining the amazing results. “I’d like to tell you about the group I […]

Zambia Cholera outbreak

Zambia is currently experiencing a Cholera outbreak which has already claimed the lives of 67 people, and as of last week (11.01.2018) it had spread to the Copperbelt. Cholera is a bacterial disease which causes severe diarrhoea and dehydration and is usually spread through water. The government has spent the last week clearing markets in the town centre […]