Kyocera Corp. announced that it will donate solar power generating systems to primary schools in Tanzania. The donation packaged will be made up of 600-watt solar power generating systems, including storage batteries. Kyocera will donate and install the systems in four schools each year over the coming five years, totaling 20 schools starting from 2008.
The company’s donation is part of a pledge that the Japanese government made during the 4th Tokyo International Conference on African Development. The government pledged to initiate an aggressive assistance program for Africa by way of yen loans totaling $4 billion. Kyocera’s donation is part of the large support from the private sector that the government’s pledge requires.
In Tanzania, the top priorities include improving its educational infrastructure to develop human resources for the future. To partly solve this challenge, Kyocera decided to donate and install its solar power generating systems to Tanzanian primary schools where the education conditions are not yet sufficient. The company hopes to improve the education standard to some extent by lighting up the classrooms and installing the electrification equipment.
Commemorating the contribution officially, Kazuo Inamori, the Kyocera Chairman Emeritus, presented a donation certificate to Jakaya Kikwete, Tanzania’s president who is currently in Japan attending the outreach sessions for the 2008 G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit.
The company began its rural electrification projects in 1983 in the village of Kankoi in Pakistan, followed by the Gansu Province of China in 1985. The company is scheduled to supply solar power generating systems to 500 households in Tunisia under a Japanese Government yen-loan project in October 2008. This will be the first use of yen loans for the delivery and installation of solar power systems.