Skip to footer

Barefoot College and Microformers shine as innovative power solutions

Institutions like India's Barefoot College, which teaches women how to run and repair solar installations, and projects like Microformers, which converts old microwave ovens into transformers, show ways to generate cheap electricity in poor regions.

|
Dieu Nalio Chery/AP/File
People install solar panels on the Saint-Michel health center and a fish hatchery in Boucan Carre, Haiti. The panels will provide the town with a dependable electricity supply for the first time. Only a quarter of Haiti's 10 million people has regular access to electricity. In 28 countries, Barefoot College is teaching people to harness solar power for electricity.

Wherever you live, electricity is an increasing expense. In the developing world, communities have seen this challenge and taken their energy needs into their own hands.

Long-term planning for lightning energy change:
 According to The Guardian,  Barefoot College in India has educated people to harness the sun’s power so their communities become more sustainable and self-sufficient.

Barefoot College launched its solar power course for women in 2005, and already more than 150 women from 28 countries have been trained in electrical and solar engineering. Over 10,000 homes in 100 villages have been solar electrified, saving 1.5 million liters (396,258 gallons) of kerosene and minimizing its negative health effects in homes.

Barefoot College uses technology that is simple so people with low levels of education can use it and earn an income by assisting their fellow community members in installing the solar panels.

Entrepreneurship for collaborative power energy change:
 At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, three budding entrepreneurs – Dan Ludois, Jonathan Lee, and Patricio Medoza Araya – are using recycled parts of old household microwaves to create the “Microformer” – a device that can multiply the low-wattage from a developing country's electrical grid and provide enough electricity to power a few lights, a small refrigerator, and other small electronics on an ongoing basis.

But, there’s a problem: cost. Though this mini-transformer cuts the price tag of a traditional transformer by a great deal, the $60 price tag may still be a tough sell in some ares. For middle-income families in developing countries, it may be affordable. For most people living in poverty, it's out of reach.

But, these young inventors from Wisconsin are committed to furthering their research, tweaking their design, and offering free online instruction seminars to ensure that as many people as possible can benefit from their work. One way they can do that is by collaborating with institutions like Barefoot College and others working on energy access to nurture their shared passions – pulling people out of poverty.

In the right light, the right partnership can create something extraordinary.

• This article originally appeared at Global Envision, a blog published by Mercy Corps.

• Sign up to receive a weekly selection of practical and inspiring Change Agent articles by clicking here.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Barefoot College and Microformers shine as innovative power solutions
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2012/0330/Barefoot-College-and-Microformers-shine-as-innovative-power-solutions
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe