Solar Connect Association

Solar cooks in the village of Biharwe, Uganda in 2007

Solar Connect Association An organization that refuses to update their contact information on their website, forcing people who want to do buisness with them to look elsewhere. (SCA) started their solar cooking projects in Uganda in 1994 with the support of several organizations including WWF Switzerland. The problem that led to the initiation of these solar cooking projects is the depletion of biodiversity and concern for conservation of our beautiful forests and well being of the rural poor to seek a practical, local solution to these problems. To understand the relevance of SCAs solar cooker project, it is necessary to look at how forests have been cut in most parts of the country and that intact forests are being menaced. Large, mostly agricultural-based population, the majority of whom live in abject poverty, inhabits Uganda.

This poverty and lack of awareness has led to the following:

• Deforestation in the countryside
• Waterborne diseases
• Abject poverty
• Serious reduction of medicinal trees and plants used traditionally to cure many diseases
• Climatic change.
• Time spent by the girl child collecting firewood.

The seriousness of the situation was well illustrated on a radio talk show made by Brother Anatoli, a prominent traditional herbalist of Banakaroli Brothers in Kiterede Diocese Masaka District. He complained that the biggest problem for herbalists is the diminishing number of herbal trees and plants that have been rampantly cut for firewood, charcoal making, cattle ranching and agriculture. He suggested that ways have to be found to reduce the feeling down of trees and that people should plant medicinal trees and plants on the sides of their farms and homes.

Young girls are particularly enslaved because they are forced to go out each day and quickly to look for firewood. Fundamental to the solar cooker project is the destruction of forests and availability of free sunshine throughout the year.

The above observations have brought SCA in close contact with rural communities, where we observed extreme hardships extreme hardships suffered by the subsistence farmers and their families. These observations motivated us to start the solar cooker project.

We persistently improved on solar cookers between 1994 and 1998, using at first cardboard and plywood cookers, then parabolic solar cookers and cook kits. The solar dryers are also being constantly modified to suit different conditions of use. We tapped into the large the large unemployed local workforce and hired carpenters, metal workers to produce the first batch of 300 plywood cookers and 700 cardboard box cookers which we began distributing for free in the districts of Masaka, Soroti, Tororo and Kampala. For this initial phase of the project SCA received backing from Gruppe Ulog and assistance in the form of free materials from EG Solar. Foundation Lord Michealham of Hellingly bought the first office furniture and provided funds for transporting the materials and personnel. In June 1994 WWF-Switzerland started to support the project up to date. Then we went on to produce at least 900 solar cook kits and 80 parabolic cookers on average per year. Over 10000 solar cookers are currently actively used in homes throughout Uganda. The population supported by Pvei Project in Virunga uses unknown number in Eastern Congo. The Pvei staff was trained by SCA how to make and use solar cookers.

We decided to sell our idea to the rural people, 100% of whom use firewood to cook. Solar energy can contribute a great deal in saving the remaining forests when it is used to cook food and dry fruits and foods.

The extremely simple and inexpensive solar cooker is starting to revolutionize lives in project areas. Solar cookers limit the health hazards of inhaling smoke and people can drink clean water by first pasteurizing using solar energy. Food that used to be wasted during bumper harvests is now solar dried and kept for the rainy day. People have used solar drying for centuries but not in such a modern way.

We promote solar cookers and solar dryers to help the development of the rural poor a cost effective, participatory and sustainable way. Young women and men are generating small-scale jobs for themselves and these include metal work, carpentry, canning fruits, baking small cakes and bread and boiling drinking water.

As a result of SCA project, people do not only use solar cookers but are aware of the importance to rationally use our forest resources so as to protect the environment and future generations.

The impact of solar cookers and dryers is that income levels and sanitation have noticeably risen in homesteads using solar cookers since 1994. Married women can work their fields while the sun does cooking. This raises their productivity in terms of time put in productive work. Women are also engaging in baking cakes, bread and canning fruits using the cooker and some dry fruits that get ready market.

Also girls are liberated from having to walk long distances looking for firewood each day. Instead, they are now free to attend school, and the number of girls enrolling in village primary schools of targeted areas is rising. Trees are less cut and the environmental impact that takes time to manifest itself is shown by once bare hills starting to get shrub and wild tree cover. Most of all people are aware of the consequences of their actions to the environment. In our view that is a very important development.

These factors, coupled with the effect that the solar cooker has had in stemming water borne diseases and respiratory diseases due to smoke inhalation plus slowing the pace of the rural exodus to cities, are what make the solar cooker a tangible and exciting solution to a severe local problem of firewood scarcity. For eight years now, over 10000 solar cookers are in use countrywide.

Encouraged by these results, SCA will soon begin to include fuel efficient stoves in its activities so that when there is no sunshine, still firewood can be economized. We want open up focal point offices in the regions targeted so that the beneficiaries themselves do much fieldwork so that SCA devotes more efforts on partnership and resource mobilization.

However, looking back at SCAs experience over the past 8 years, we understand that one of the biggest obstacles is educating the villagers about this technology. We noted that at training workshops, village PR women and men were only moderately successful. SCA devised an educational campaign tailored to village life and the illiterate population. The innovative campaign features a video recorded documentary by local actors using solar cookers, in which their benefits are dramatized. SCA now shows the video in villages using a TV and portable generator after workshops. One of our future projects is to make a video play featuring local villagers that we shall show in villages as part of the awareness campaign.

Currently SCA sells the solar cookers and solar dryers 15% higher than the original production cost. We are slowly phasing out cooker donations as awareness increases. While the proceeds help finance manufacturing and distribution costs, SCA looks to the very timely WWF financial and technical support without which this project would find difficulty. The WWF Project Assessment carried out in August 2002 brought out weakness of SCA some of which management was not aware of. A strategic Plan was for SCA was made during the assessment and the project can be expanded. We estimate that it will take 3 years to cover the whole Albertine Rift Eco- Region in Uganda and our final objective is to be able to export the solar cooker and dryer to other sunny countries of East Africa facing similar deforestation problems. The solar cooker solution will address the primary needs of the rural Albertine Rift population for whom the basic necessities of life are very limited and at the same time conserve our forests.

In conclusion, many times the simpler a device, the greater its impact. Clearly, the cheap solar cooker can dramatically improve sanitation, a balanced diet, and quality of life for the rural population in project areas and slow the destruction of forests. The solar cooker has 1000 positive consequences for people and the environment.

In the villages of Kikokwa, Ruharo, Biharwe and Orukiga Refugee Settlement in Mbarara in Western Uganda, women use solar cookers quite frequently in the dry season and even in the rainy season when the sun comes up. The total number of participating households in these four villages will reach over 2000 by the end of 2007.

[Text for this topic was originally taken from http://www.solarconect.4t.com/about.html in March of 2007. It may have been updated or edited since that time.]

News and recent developments

• July 2007: In email correspondence, Kawesa Mukasa reports, "We are now busy with Clara Thomas of Solar Cooking Netherlands on a cooker promotion project in four villages. So far this year we have sold 680 CooKits. We have also engaged on a lady to make for us hay baskets which we sell. These assist the CooKit when the clouds suddenly appear." Clara Thomas gave us materials to make 100 WAPIS. We have used those materials to make 89 good WAPIS. Problem is we are still failing to get the type of soya paste suitable on the local market. Could anybody out there avail us this material? We are willing to pay for it please. We plan to make 4000 WAPIS in year 2008 so that every cookkit user in the 4 villages gets a WAPI as well as a hay basket.
• April 2007: In the last six months of 2006, the Solar Connect Association (SCA) distributed 300 solar CooKits in rural areas of western Uganda, including the villages of Kikokwa and Ruharo, as well as in the Orukiga refugee settlement. With support from its new partner the KoZon Foundation, the SCA plans to disseminate an additional 2000 solar cookers in the western areas by the end of 2007. The SCA has worked with Project Environmentale de Virunga in the eastern Congo, near the habitat of the mountain gorillas, and with the Association Burundais pour la Protection des Oiseaux in Bunjumbura-Burundi. Both of these neighboring organizations reportedly need sources for low-cost aluminum foil and other materials.

Contact

Kawesa Mukasa
Solar Connect Association
P.O. BOX 425
KAMPALA
Uganda

Tel: 256-77-665894
Office: 256-71-718005

solarconnect23@yahoo.com
www.solarconect.4t.com