Only 9% of rural sub-Saharan residents in Africa have access to electricity and families can spend up to 25% of their income on toxic kerosene for lighting. Yingli Solar and SolarAid are trying to help change that.
Yingli Solar, a global integrated photovoltaic (PV) manufacturer, partnered with SolarAid to light Mayukwayukwa High School in Kaoma, Zambia, by installing a solar PV system on the newly built UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) School.
Thanks to the contributions of Yingli’s partners including Atama Solar Energy, Kingspan Energy and Solar Roof Systems, the project was successfully completed.
In 2013, Yingli Solar and its partners had raised a total of $32,616 for SolarAid, using solar power to foster education and development in Africa. The fundraising will support SolarAid’s ‘Lighter Learning’ program to improve the education of children in Africa by providing lighting for classrooms in 12 schools across Zambia.
UNHCR representative to Zambia, Laura Lo Castro, said in a statement that her organisation appreciated the solar lighting system and that it would help them meet the lighting needs at Mayukwayukwa High School. The construction of the high school started in September 2008, as UNHCR intends to provide education for refugee students who struggle to access day school because of the limited school places in the area.
Thanks to the solar system installed, Mayukwayukwa High School is now able to light one of the school’s large classrooms, the headmaster’s office and a dormitory, helping scholars with studying and providing security lighting at the same time. The solar system can also charge cellphones, saving the whole community from traveling long distances to find a charging point.
The high school is located in the Mayukwayukwa Settlement, one of Africa’s oldest refugee camps that was established in 1966 following the break-out of Angola’s 27-year civil war, 186 miles to the west of the capital city, Lusaka. About 15,500 refugees reside in the Mayukwayukwa camp at the moment and many of them know no other home, having been born in the camp.
Only 9% of rural sub-Saharan residents in Africa have access to electricity and families can spend up to 25% of their income on toxic kerosene for lighting. SolarAid’s goal is to eradicate the kerosene lamp fromAfrica by 2020 and get clean safe light into every home, improving the health, education and wealth ofAfrica’s 110 million households currently living without access to electricity.