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/

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

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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 !

Today at the Copenhagen climate conference, on behalf of President Obama, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the launch of a new initiative to promote clean energy technologies in developing countries.  Secretary Chu also welcomed progress under the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) and invited his counterparts in MEF and other countries to a first-ever Clean Energy Ministerial next year.

Climate REDI

Secretary Chu today announced the launch of a new Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative (Climate REDI).  The program will accelerate deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies in developing countries – reducing greenhouse gas emissions, fighting energy poverty and improving public health for the most vulnerable, particularly women and children.
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We are very excited to announce that Light Up Malawi will be featured on the Unreasonable Institute Marketplace to participate in the final round of a competition that will secure investors, advisors and put us on the fast track to making this idea a success.We’ve made the cut down from 284 amazing ideas to be part of the final 42! One more round of vetting to go…
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