Akwaaba to the Power to Empower!

First Blog Post – Arrival in Ghana

Friends, Family, Students, Akwaaba to our blog, The Power to Empower!  Over the next month, this blog will chronicle the electrification of small village outside Tamale, Northern Ghana.  We (Lauren Phipps and Robert Little) are here working with the nonprofit Saha Global with funding through the Davis Projects for Peace Grant to create a women-run, community owned solar business.

We arrived here in Accra early this morning (June 8^th) after spending the last half week in Cairo, Egypt.  Pyramids, camels, a boat ride on the Nile – we were efficient tourists and will post some photos later to prove it (Yes, there are camel selfies).  Today serves as a cushion day before traveling 14 hours north to Tamale where we’ll begin working.  Logistics included taking a crowded tro tro (public bus) to the center of town to buy internet and phone cards, purchasing abrobe (pinapple), ankaa (oranges), and of course a how bowl of freshly pounded fufu. Because this is our first post, we figured we’d depart from the casual musings and photos of our future daily entries, and instead focus on sharing our project outline with you.

It is no secret that women, especially those in rural areas, are critical agents of achieving community wellbeing, security, and sustainable development. However, in the rural villages of Northern Ghana, a different type of power has stifled female empowerment: electricity. The United Nations General Assembly unanimously declared 2014-2024 as the Decade of Sustainable Energy for All, premised on the widespread understanding that “energy is the golden thread that connects economic growth, increased social equity, and an environment that allows the world to thrive”. Ghana is no exception to this trend. Our project, The Power to Empower, aims to address the lack of power, understood as a two-fold problem, by promoting female leadership and renewable energy through community-based social entrepreneurship.

Despite its national investment in renewable energy, 34% of Ghanaians are not connected to the grid. They are therefore forced to rely on inefficient and unsustainable sources of electricity to meet their growing energy demands. Powering up a cell phone, a nearly universal technology in Ghana, requires a day of travel to the Tamale marketplace and a fee to plug into the grid. Illuminating a home at night requires the use of lead-acid battery powered flashlights or kerosene lamps, a notoriously problematic fuel that is both expensive and hazardous when used in closed spaces due to the emission of black carbon. Women are disproportionately impacted by the physical danger of these technologies given the amount of time they spend fulfilling domestic responsibilities inside the home. Although the number of women in schools has increased, they are limited by the lack of sunlight to work in their home and on their education. The absence of energy infrastructure in rural Ghana has social, economic, environmental, and health consequences, all of which can be alleviated with a community-based solution.

Our project will construct a community solar center that will not only power up a village in Ghana, but also empower its women owners and entrepreneurs. The project goal will be to equip one village of 70-90 households (TBD) with one solar center, enabling cell phone recharge and predictable light 365 nights a year. We will train women of the village on business and solar power management, and we will provide each household with a lantern that can be recharged at the solar station.

Accomplishing our goal of electrifying a village and subtly shifting power and ownership to favor its women requires the extensive cultural knowledge, operational expertise, and respectful intercultural perspective of our student team. Although we secured funding for this project from the Davis Projects for Peace, we are excited to be partnering with Saha Global – a nonprofit dedicated to “solving problems with opportunities” through social entrepreneurship.  

Robert Little has lived in Ghana for nearly half a year, conducting pioneering research on potable water sachets through Andrew Mellon funding (to be published in May 2015). Most recently, he was selected to create a women-run potable water business in Salaga (near Tamale) with our partner organization Saha Global. He plans to continue visiting Ghana for graduate research and community follow up visits. Spending the majority of 2014 outside the US, Lauren Phipps revolutionized the core operations of an internationally famous social enterprise that builds and distributes locally- sourced clay water filters in Guatemala. She was able to modernize Ecofiltro  by developing and implementing a cellphone bar-coding inventory management system and remained financially independent holding down a second job – navigating both responsibilities almost all in Spanish. Together, the strengths of the two partners constitute a powerful formula for the international development work in Ghana targeted at the two-tailed goal of sustainable energy through empowering women.

Sustainability is at the heart of our project, and must be understood as a social and environmental objective. So many NGOs experience only short-term success due to a top-down charity-based approach. Our project prioritizes community investment and a profit motive to ensure its positive reception and longevity (in combination with NGO monitoring for at least 5 years). We will work within the existing social structure (village chieftaincies), partner with village-selected female entrepreneurs, and provide funding for sustained sales and equipment monitoring through our collaboration with the Ghanaian nonprofit Saha Global, all in order to guarantee the permanent success of our project. By harnessing a renewable source of energy with locally sourced Burro solar energy products, we can proudly identify of creating sustainable, local business for the people of Ghana. Making rapid development in Ghana sustainable and equitable means empowering the next generation of resources. Our project will redirect the power of the sun into the hands and homes of Ghanaian women indefinitely.

We invite you to follow our journey!

-Robert and Lauren