Project Goal:
To avail easy-to- acquire, easy-to- maintain, health-friendly source of energy in rural schools in Siaya County.
Project Summary:
Electrical power is the main and essential means of energy in this world. Many activities revolve around electricity. In Kenya social, political and economic factors have prevented access to electricity for many of the rural population. This includes but is not limited to: poverty where people are not able to afford the cost of acquiring electrical power, distance from electric grid and reliability (frequent power outages or surges). Solar energy offers the solution to challenges of electricity. Affordability for off grid and deprived families is one of the greatest gains of solar energy. Solar energy is the way to go for financially crippled families and schools in isolated regions where Ace Africa works. The donation of the solar project to schools was established on 13th June 2014, with the objective of enhancing performance of children in two targeted schools through a pilot study as most households depend on tin lamps or kerosene lamps which produces an unhealthy amount of smoke. It is not only harmful to a person’s health but also causes a lot of constraints as the pupils conduct their educative studies at home. Phase 1 of the project was completed in 2015 and saw off-grid energy in 16 schools in Siaya.
Phase Two:
In phase two of the project Ace Africa has been targeting a further fifteen schools in Siaya County along with the Wellness Centre. At the end of 2015 and prior to the new school year, Ace Africa in consultation with the Ministry of Education identified fifteen further schools to have off-grid energy set up within their school environment. The obtaining of all the technology has taken place and installation has been on-going across the fifteen schools and Wellness Centre over the last several months. For this stage of the development, we have changed provider for the technology. We are now using Chloride Exide due to price differences and the ability to develop local maintenance and repair capacity of the installations.
The Child to Child teachers from the fifteen schools and an average of five to six club officials have been trained on usage and maintenance of the solar system. Ace has approved a local professional to help as a technician with the installation and they will be providing constant technical maintenance to the schools within the solar system. The off grid mission has presented a lot of potential in improving the performance of children in schools.
Ace Africa and the communities that we support are immensely pleased with this project. The Ace Africa team in Kenya have been inundated with requests from more schools in the area to expand solar coverage.