SolarAid Malawi

Mzuzu, Malawi
In partnership with SolarAid UK

SolarAid gives support to the rural poor living in areas of Malawi with no access to electricity. Schools have few resources and no electricity. Health clinics are limited in the services they can offer, such as basic vaccinations, as they are not connected to the grid and so cannot, for example, use fridges to store vaccines. Local people use kerosene to light their homes, which is expensive, polluting, damaging to health and increasingly scarce. Most people live on very modest incomes and have difficulty providing for their families.

SolarAid aims to enable the world's poorest people to have clean, renewable power. Solar power leads to better education, health, safety and income by allowing poor communities to cook, pump water, run fridges, store vaccines, light homes, schools, clinics and businesses, power computers and homes, farm more effectively, and much more.

SolarAid carries out DIY solar projects - training local communities how to build small scale solar devices such as solar powered radios and lanterns - and installs small solar systems for community centres, medical clinics, schools and other such communal infrastructure.

The majority of people living in rural Malawi do not have access to electricity and are forced to burn kerosene for lighting. Kerosene is harmful to health, dangerous and increasingly expensive. Kerosene is also a fossil fuel that emits greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change - our calculations show that the average kerosene lamp in Africa spews out a tonne of CO2 in less than 10 years.

SolarAid’s ‘Lighting Malawain Homes’ project will introduce simple, locally assembled, affordable LED solar lanterns to the poorest communities. It will provide people with a cheap alternative to kerosene, saving many lives. They will be training 120 young people orphaned or affected by HIV/AIDS in Northern Malawi in solar skills to build these solar lanterns.

They will help source and import solar and LED materials to Malawi. The lights will be sold through existing sales networks and, most importantly, the low cost will ensure the new technology is readily accepted.

SolarAid is also training local people to make and sell micro solar products, such as solar lamps and mobile phone chargers and installing macro solar systems on health clinics and schools The products can be repaired locally, which provides salesmen with the confidence to issue warranties.

To find out more about SolarAid's amazing work please click here