Towards the end of the first quarter of 2019, CSAAE partnered with Solar Empowerment Initiatives (SEI) to manufacture and make available to students in Nigeria durable solar lamps at affordable prices. As a non-profit social enterprise dedicated to the integral development of young people in Africa, the Centre has been troubled by the unavailability of uninterrupted power supply to enable young people get the education they need and has been seeking ways to contribute to African socioeconomic development.
The SF-202 4400mAh Lithium-ion solar lamp comes with:
- Solar Lamp
- Solar panel
- USB Charger
- Manual
When fully charged, the lamp can be set to 5 levels of brightness
- 30 Lumens which lasts for 60 hours (2days+)
- 70 lumens which lasts for 30 hours (1day+)
- 80 lumens which lasts for 20 hours
- 130 lumens which lasts 16 hours
- And the best bet for reading is 90 lumens which lasts for 18hours.
SF-202 can as well be used to charge phones.
To buy this solar lamp from CSAAE you must either be a student or you are buying it for a student. You satisfy this requirement by tendering an ID card of the student that you are buying it for.
Please call Onyekachi to order: +234 803 339 0830. Or stop by our office at Plot 133 Ikenegbu layout, opposite Cherubim Junction, right on top of Everyday Supermarket, Owerri Imo State. You can also send us an email: info@csaaeinc.org.
We reached out to the Executive Director of SEI, Mr. Mike Varhola and here are his comments about the Solar Lamps.
What is the mission of Solar Empowerment Initiative?
The mission of the Solar Empowerment Initiative is to fill a vital niche by providing clean, efficient solar lights to families and individuals that do not have reliable access to electricity. That can be a remote village in Africa or Asia, a disaster area, or the homeless living on the streets of American cities. We are driven by a desire to make lives better and particularly to brighten the futures of school children by giving light to illuminate their studies.
What is the scope of your impact and operation?
We do not limit ourselves geographically. We will send solar lights anywhere in the world where we can find somebody to partner with. In the case of Nigeria, we worked with Father Godswill Agbagwa to manufacture an initial supply of 500 solar lamps to be sold at subsidized rates to college students who live in college dormitories. The students need several hours of light at night to do their studies, but some college generators provide only two hours of electricity.
What are some achievements of SEI?
In 2019, we sent over 2000 solar lanterns to Sri Lanka. These were distributed to school children in poor villages throughout the country by the World Vision organization in Sri Lanka. We were able to do this on a small budget because World Vision in Sri Lanka picked up the lanterns at the port, paid all taxes and port fees, and handled the distribution. Have you seen this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9VgrhqCiwE.
Why did you partner with CSAAE?
I met one of CSAAE’s board of directors, Dr. Patrick Nwakama, at a fundraising event in Maryland. He put me in touch with Father Godswill, who explained to me that many college students living in dormitories in Nigeria could not study as many hours as they needed to because the some of the generators operated for about two hours in the evening. Together, we devised a plan to ship 500 solar lamps to Nigeria. These lamps were different than the ones that we normally distribute to school children in that they had a separate solar panel as well as a USB port for charging cell phones. This project was made possible by Father Godswill’s willingness to not only share the cost of the lamps, but also to handle customs fees as well as the distribution of the lamps at subsidized rates to students in Nigeria.
What is your final note to our readers?
We do not discriminate based on race, religion, or any other category as long as we comply with U.S law. We do a lot with limited funds because we work with partners to help us with the cost of the lamps and to cover all in-country expenses and distribution. We also ask our partners to provide us feedback in the form of pictures and stories that we can use to motivate our donors. In that way we have provided many thousands of solar lanterns like the one in the Sri Lanka video to families and individuals all over the world, to include homeless people in America, particularly in Washington, D.C.
We hope to work together with CSAAE in the future to provide more lamps to students in Nigeria.
Check us out on twitter @solarempowers or our website www.solaremp.org.
