Light Up Malawi

Dear Donors,

The changes in Malawi over the past year politically and economically have made it difficult for a new organization like ours to proceed with our original plans. Other factors such as the MCC putting a hold on their energy compact funding, journalists being sought out for reporting on internal politics, and some major energy grants from the UK also being cut – we are putting the Light Up Malawi project on hold until further notice. Our assessment has revealed that for an established organization, working in Malawi would be a very different and much more successful proposition.

To that end we will be partnering with buildOn, our original partner in Malawi when we did the projects in Kusungu.  These funds will go to a Light Up Malawi/buildOn partnership course for adults as part of the Community Education Program that they have established. The program will cover health issues as well as energy education. We see this as a better place to hold the activities of LUM- inside of an existing program.

The buildOn Community Education Program in Malawi is targeted to illiterate adults, and provides fundamental numeracy and literacy skills, as well as new knowledge about nutrition, family planning, alternative energy sources, and income generating activities. The program also creates opportunities for empowerment and wealth building among its participants. Completion rates in the CEP ranges from 80-90 percent, and literacy levels among participants increase across the board. Women CEP participants are fully engaged and are represented equally in the CEP.  buildOn recruits, trains, and pays teachers for the two-year CEP.

The budget for fully funding CEP is $5000, and goes to pay for two facilitators, trainings, monitoring and evaluation, supplies, and program supervision, and guest speakers/experts. We didn’t want to disappoint you, our valued donors and working with buildOn guarantees that entire communities benefit from this education!

More about buildOn

buildOn is a non-profit organization that empowers primarily urban U.S. high school students through in-class and intensive afterschool youth service programs. In addition to tremendous contributions of community service in their own cities and neighborhoods, buildOn youth actually build schools and bring literacy to children and adults in developing countries around the world. buildOn programs are designed to build confidence and real-world capabilities in American youth while also empowering communities world-wide in Africa, South America, and South East Asia to overcome the cycle of illiteracy, poverty and low expectations by opening the door to education.

http://buildon.org/

If you are dissatisfied with your donation to this project and would like to reallocate your donation to another GlobalGiving project, please contact Alexis Nadin at anadin@globalgiving.org by Friday, October 28th.

Co- Founder Ryan Renner will no longer be serving as Executive Director and Raina Kumra, Founder continues her full time work in the Administration as LUM closes its doors until further notice. We are very proud of what we have achieved thus far and want to continue to act responsibly towards achieving our goals.

Many thanks,

Raina Kumra

http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/power-for-health-in-rural-malawi-maternity-and-hiv-care/updates/

We have updated pictures from our May 2010 Malawi Pilot/Market Research trip.

Please see our Light Up Malawi Facebook Page .

We were a Finalist for Ford’s Global Focus Test Drive!

We’re competing to earn 1 of 50 spots Ford’s Focus Global Test Drive. If our team is chosen, Light UP Malawi will receive $10,000 for it’s agribusiness energy pilot this Spring. We’ll also have 2 days of test driving the 2012 Global Focus at Spain’s National Institute of Aerospace Technology.

During and after the event, we’ll share what we learned about the 2012 Global Ford Focus, and use Ford’s $10,000 to develop our agribusiness energy pilot in Malawi. That pilot is designed to bring markets to farmers, decrease Malawi’s 20% Post-Harvest Losses of food, and direct food into Food Security Supply Chains!

In the next couple days we’ll learn if our work and your support heped us earn $10,000 for Light Up Malawi! If you haven’t seen our video yet, please go to the following link to watch our 1 min. 38 sec. video! www.bit.ly/gGEBve

Final word from Ford on the 50 chosen teams will be released soon. Regardless of whether we made the final cut, thank you for your support, and Congratulations to all the chosen teams!

For more information, click on the Global Ford Focus Competition Page to the right.

At the Mauwa Health Centre, expectant mothers must bring their own candles or kerosene for lighting. With your help we’ll be able ensure more women can give more births with the proper electricity, equipment and care needed to save the lives of mothers and children.

Help us raise funds to provide immediate energy support for the Mauwa Health Centre, and help it grow from an unpowered 10 bed building to a 60 bed resource that enables nighttime service and powered healthcare equipment. We will need $60,000 to do this project properly, but every small donation takes us a long way!

On average, Mauwa Health Centre serves 245 ant-natal cases, 420 malaria cases, 105 deliveries and 24 referral cases per month. With only 10 beds available, admission is currently only available for deliveries. If all 105 average deliveries per month were evenly spaced and timed, each mother would receive a little over 2 days of in-patient care (for labor and delivery). But deliveries are rarely well timed, and lack of energy and inadequate space denies many critical patients the care they need.

Potential Long Term Impact

You will raise the standard of care for Malawi Health Centres by delivering a larger, sterile environment for improved infant mortality, lights for nighttime service and security, and resources that will educate and propagate knowledge districtwide.

DONATE NOW!

As Light Up Malawi engages projects that convert biomass to energy we unleash human capacity (innovation!) for development.   We will track these developments to analyze our impact and identify the next steps needed.  John’s experience and insight with Location Intelligence will help guide Light Up Malawi’s growth, maximize donor value, and provide transparency to investors.

John, Thank you for joining us on our adventure. See our Board of Directors and Advisors.

A Note from John:

“It is a pleasure to be one of the first to join Light Up Malawi’s Board of Directors.

As an introduction, Ryan asked me to comment on why I joined the Board for Light Up Malawi. Simply put, I was impressed by the project’s vision and wanted to help.

I’ve worked with agriculture in development scenarios for much of my career. Light Up Malawi’s focus on the relationship between energy and agricultural success creates a convergence of value.  Agricultural waste biomass producing energy in-situ creates opportunities for farmers to join the information world further improving their livlihood.

As Light Up Malawi’s projects develop, I look forward to helping implement impact analysis tools that use location intelligence. As we’ve shown at aWhere, location based business data with transparency and accountability enable tremendous insight and clarity to business growth investments.

I look forward to working with the LUM Team and Board of Directors to develop a long-term strategy that maximizes the impact of the LUM vision utilizing the skills and knowledge of the team.”

Sincerely,
John D. Corbett

“Light Up Malawi takes a systems approach to finance, education and energy, creating wins for everyone involved.”

– Premal Shah, President, Kiva.org

Show your support and donate now!

Thanks to an amazing partnership with BuildON and Energy For Opportunity we had a very successful first pilot on our renewable education tract.
Over a three day workshop we taught 17 teachers from 4 different communities in the Kasungu District how to do basic electrical, and basic solar maintenance, and a solar installation. Simon Willans of EFO led the instruction. The learnings were amazing: Malawians are hungry for knowledge – we had full attendance, attention and more people interested every day. Watching the teachers create a basic circuit for the first time was fantastic. Their understanding spread from the classroom to the installation. We left tools for each student and a professional solar instruction manual for each community and also placed this manual in the library of the Wimbe School. Every one of the teachers is committed to taking this knowledge to all of their communities, and spreading the instruction into all of BuildOn’s Community Education Programs.

The panel we installed will power the lighting for two classrooms and even a laptop. Stand by as we hear feedback from the community on how one panel is changing their lives.

We also placed some solar mobile charging stations and dynamo lanterns for clinics in the Chiradzulu District, and Thyolo District and met with several ministers to begin talks about Malawi’s energy policy and tariff reduction on renewable energy products. While in Kenya we attended the Lighting Africa conference where we met with key stakeholders working in renewable energy in Africa. All in all, a very productive time in Malawi.

Please support this project !

As we travel around Malawi prepping for our first pilot, we have come across some brilliant minds in development- here’s a post from Owen Scott, one of the Engineers without Borders crew.

Can solar panels be “the next cell phone” in rural Africa?
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Pilirani Semu-Banda

BLANTYRE, May 31 (IPS) – Malawi’s utilisation of energy resources is heavily dominated by firewood, which provides 93 percent of all energy needs. Current annual household consumption of firewood and charcoal are at 7.5 million tons, exceeding sustainable supply by 3.7 million tons.
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All Africa.com March 3, 2010

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