SolarAid’s social enterprise, SunnyMoney has worked with thousands of schools across rural Africa, helping us kickstart solar markets and bring solar lighting to over 12 million people.
We began this work in 2010, together with schools in Tanzania, before expanding the model to Kenya, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia. We learned that head teachers were perfectly placed to introduce solar lights to rural communities. Teachers tell the children, children tell their parents.
By working with schools and their head teachers, we can build awareness, trust and demand for solar lights. While working to serve rural communities is expensive, by partnering with Ministries of Education, we had ‘cracked the code’ of how to efficiently and effectively introduce solar lights to rural communities and provide students with the opportunity to do better at school, helping them study after dark.
