Energy for Opportunity

St Martin’s Orphanage – Port Loko

Simon Willans — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:18:43 +0000

Happy to announce that EFO has finally finished the solar installation at St. Martin’s Orphanage in Port Loko. Sheka, Idrissa and I did the installation with the help of the children and staff. Emily, who is the coordinator and the children at the Orphanage were dancing the first day we switched on the light. According to them life is now fine because they study at night under the clean light and drink cool water from the solar fridge. Special thanks to Mark Arts at the Art Foundation who sponsored this project! Posted by Mohamed Kabba Turay.

EFO and EWB – Kono Clinic

Simon Willans — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:07:18 +0000

EFO, in conjuction with Engineers Without Borders-Princeton, recently installed solar electricity system at an Amputee Clinic in Sena Town, Kono District.The clinic is sponsored by the National Organization For Welbody (NOW) and the solar electricity system was funded through efforts of EWB. The system consisted of a 2100watt array, which is the biggest system installed by Energy For Opportunity and likely the bigest solar electricity system in Sierra Leone. EFO supported the project through design, procurement, local logistics and technical oversite of the installation. Students from GTI training programme also participated in the project.

For photos from the installation, follow this link to our facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/photo_search.php?oid=60927992298&view=all

Sierra Leone Solar Power Documentary

Paul Munro — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 08:07:08 +0000

Short documentary about AusAID funded EFO project conducted in Sierra Leone:

San Francisco learns about EFO!

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:48:36 +0000

On July 13th, 2010, Energy for Opportunity was invited to present about our work to “SF Energy Discuss” – a regular meetup of people in the Bay Area who work, research or are generally interested in energy.

I presented on behalf us to a room full of energy specialists eager all to learn about what is involved when undertaking power installation projects in West Africa, and what it means to bring cheap reliable electricity and lighting to communities for the first time.

You can see the presentation on slideshare:
http://www.slideshare.net/wwrob/solar-in-west-africa-projects-and-goals-of-energy-for-opportunity

Thank you to everyone who came along!

- Rob

St. Martins Orphanage

Simon Willans — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:48:02 +0000

After being stuck in the office we managed to get back in the field. On this trip we finished the electrical installation at the St. Martin’s Orphanage in Port Loko. The installation was done with four students EFO had trained through the programme at GTI. The children and staff at the Orphanage also helped with the small-small work like digging, fetching water and transporting the materials.

Posted by Mohamed Kabba Turay

Princeton Intern – Kamakwie Computer Training

Simon Willans — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 09:55:35 +0000

We were recently joined by Nizette Edwards, an intern from Princeton who will be working with EFO until early August. It is a bit of a challenging time to come to Salone as the rains make travel hard and bring a general slowdown to the country. Despite that we wasted no time putting her to work! For the first month she will be based in Kamakwie and be working at the Secondary School, a site of a previous EFO installation. The McKeons, the same people who funded the solar work have also provided some computers, a printer and a three month internet connection for the school. Nizette will be working with the teachers and administration to train staff, develop courseware and modify the schedule so that computer classes will be available for the 2010-2011 school year…tough work but I am sure she is up for it!

Lighting Africa 2010

Simon Willans — Thu, 20 May 2010 15:28:28 +0000

Well…the Lighting Africa 2010 Conference has come to an end. It was an excellent three days of presentations and meetings with a group of dedicated and vibrant people doing much the same work as EFO, although with slightly different motives and goals. This is the third time I have come to this conference(IFC guest this year) and it is amazing to see how big it has become and how far products and models have improved. It is also interesting to see how finance and marketing have started moving into the conversation, indicating the sophistication that the industry is reaching. There should be some serious movement in the next year and I expect to see some real leaps forward. I’m off to Malawi tomorrow for a week of training and installation work with Light Up Malawi…check back for updates.

Go East Young Man

Simon Willans — Mon, 17 May 2010 13:37:58 +0000

EFO is branching out and heading on a two week trip to Kenya and Malawi. Although our focus is on West Africa, these two programmes are so important and aligned with our own goals that we decided to leave our home base.

We have been invited by the International Finance Corporation to attend the 2010 Lighting Africa Conference in Nairobi as a product judge. This is the third LA Conference and brings together most, if not all, of the major players working on finding lighting and other energy solutions for rural Africa. The last two events have been excellent and it is an incredible opportunity to meet with others working in the same field, get new ideas a see new products. http://www.lightingafrica.org/

From Nairobi we are off to Malawi to work with an organisation called Light Up Malawi, http://lightupmalawi.org/ Light Up Malawi is a young organisation like EFO and has similar goals and ideas about the potential of solar power in supporting rural Africa. We will be running some training sessions for communities they plan on working with and providing any support and advice we can along the way.

We will be posting photos and updates on the facebook page throughout the next two weeks. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=60927992298#!/group.php?gid=60927992298

Energy For Opportunity…back in the Lakka community

Simon Willans — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:40:54 +0000

After a tough week of up-country work a relaxing week of office work would have made sense to most. We decided it was a better idea to get back into the community and do some work in Lakka. The Community Centre was recently renovated and expanded so it seemed like the ideal time to hold a training session for ten community members and also redo and improve the old solar electricity system that was there. So starting at 8am tomorrow we will be live in Lakka, training and installing!

Kamakwie revisited

Simon Willans — Fri, 07 May 2010 09:08:45 +0000

I just got back from another up-country trip, which included two more installations in Kamakwie and our first two in Kamalo. Adding to our previous work in Kamakwie we finished installations at the hospital and the community centre/town hall. We were there for a couple of days and it also gave me the chance to stop by the orphanage and school to see how the systems were performing and more importantly if they were being used and what impact they were having.

At the orphanage everything was working smoothly and although the rains have started and the power is less, the staff have figured out how to manage it effectively and were rationing the power to ensure it was there when needed. The panels were still being washed and the computer lab Yossi set up was being used by the children for watching films, learning basic programmes and also for photo editing!

We also stopped over at the school unannounced one evening to see how things were going there. We had heard that there had been some developments but were shocked by the activities! The school has organised a series of night classes for both the JSS and SSS students and they are being taught and attended daily. It is also time for the WASC exam, the standardised test students sit prior to going to university or post secondary school. Between the classes and students studying for the WASC there were at least 200 students on campus spread out in six of the classrooms. I talked to Mr. Conteh, the Principal and he also informed me that afternoon computer classes were scheduled to start this week and all the task lights Leslie had bought for the school had been bought by staff and students and they were ready to place an additional order. Perhaps even more important than these quantifiable actions, there was a noticeable excitement and pride among the staff and students in their school and the opportunity that the solar power had provided.