IBC Solar has supplied three schools in Senegal with 500 portable solar lamps as well as vouchers to charge the lamps.
The best part is that the vouchers serve as incentives for students who are awarded special merits in school, ie making good grades. The project, with the help of German sustainable investment firm KAЇTO Projekt GmbH, aims to help rural electrification by creating awareness of renewable energy and its benefits. Teachers give vouchers each week to reward students, allowing them to charge lamps for free at one of the solar kiosks that have previously been supplied with solar modules.
“We encountered several challenges in the course of the project,” explained Heidi Schiller, general manager of KAЇTO Projekt GmbH. “First of all, we had to convince the villagers of the merit principle. The population in this region of Senegal has a strong community spirit and tends to allot the same standard to everyone, even if it is quite low. So a great deal of convincing had to be done,” Schiller added.
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