After a successful first training for a very nice group at Rape Hurts Foundation, the participants have been able to start their solar baking production with great success.

All together, Augustine Olowo, Allen Odongo and Sam Rodrigues have organized a great training.

Hellen Lunkuse W. Tanyinga, founder of RHF, says they are selling like crazy. Four people are involved in continuing the bakery and for now they are baking 200 buns each day, and selling easily to nearby shops and people who know them.

One can read on the wall of Rape Hurts Foundation: "A world in which human and children realize their full Human Rights, Health, Social-Economic and Civic potential." That is what we are willing to achieve as well, one solar oven at the time (and more and more actually!).

This project starts really well and the team can’t wait to continue after the holidays with more training’s.

This is made possible because of the close cooperation of RHF and ’s SELF, Solar Electric Light Fund, a US based NGO financing this project.

And a big thank you to Joan for organizing the shipping brilliantly, and to Jared, Josef and the workers in Kenya for building all this!

Mission accomplie ! C’est en janvier 2021 que l’association normande Tora Coeur de Caux nous a contacté par l’intermédiaire de notre ami Loïc Perochon pour démarrer un projet à Sika, province de Nasséré, dans le nord du Burkina Faso. Après quelques échanges dynamiques avec Denise Fouquer, membre fondatrice de l’asso, et l’accord du maire de Nasséré, une campagne de levée de fonds a démarré pour permettre de compléter le financement du projet. Elle a été un franc succès et tous les contributeurs sont chaleureusement remerciés.

Du jeudi 14 octobre 2021 au samedi 23 octobre 2021, en tant que représentant de Solar Fire/GoSol au Burkina Faso j’ai organisé la formation de l’association Tora Cœur de Caux en boulangerie et en pâtisserie. Nous avons commencé par la formation technique de 4 personnes avec aussi Mr Eric René Sawadogo qui représente l’association Tora ici. Les premiers jours ont porté sur le montage de la Lytefire, la focalisation des miroirs, et la maintenance de la machine. Nous les avons appris pendant 5 jours à maîtriser plus que le nécessaire sur la Lytefire afin qu’elle puisse être installée une fois chez eux. Par ailleurs, les personnes formées pourraient même former d’autres bénéficiaires si elles le souhaitent.

A partir du 20 octobre 2021, nous avons débuté la formation en pâtisserie avec notre chef pâtissier. Après avoir mis l’accent sur les règles d’hygiène à suivre, il a pu faire en moyenne 3 recettes par jour pendant 4 jours. Les différentes recettes étaient entre autres : le pain simple salé, le pain au lait, les brioches, le pain de mine, les gâteaux cake, le pain sucré, le pain ghanéen, le pain au sésame, le pain hamburger…

Par ailleurs, le chef pâtissier les faisait reprendre les recettes eux-mêmes jusqu’à ce qu’ils les maîtrisent.

Ils étaient tous enthousiastes d’être les premiers à débuter pour la première fois de telles recettes dans leur village, me confient-ils.

Photos Martin Pouadibidjie et Tora.

This is an interview with Derrick, one of the youth mentors at the Gulu SmartUp Factory, Uganda. In the video, he discusses why entrepreneurs need to be dynamic, the health and economics of polluting heat sources like charcoal or wood and some hopes for the future.

The students here in Gulu have little real world experience running a business and it is exciting to see how they are approaching the business that resulted from our solar entrepreneurship education package.

(Sorry, this time the sound quality is not so good)

Meet Angella, one of the young women at SmartUp Factory Tororo who participated in our solar entrepreneurship education training. Angella was one of the most enthusiastic bakers in the group, always with a big smile on her face.

She participated regularly in the roundtable discussions about how to organize the solar baking business that would emerge as a result of this training. Youth unemployment in Uganda is around 80% and Angella and the others are keen to earn an income.

Introducing Angella:

We’re happy to share with you this video which shows some great moments from the Solar Entrepreneurship Training we conducted in Uganda with Plan International (Uganda) and SmartUp Factory Uganda.

During this course we taught these young Ugandans about solar science, baking, design thinking, entrepreneurship skills and how to install and maintain the SOL5 solar concentrator.

This program is particularly powerful because it comes with everything needed for the participants to learn new skills and have a green job at the end of it. Most of the participants have never run a business before, and now they are gaining real world experience as well as real income.

Our new solar entrepreneurs are battling climate change as well as providing an income for themselves while minimizing the environmental impact of doing business. In many African nations, charcoal and firewood are the primary source of thermal energy for small businesses, and our solution allows micro and small businesses to save money while allowing the forests to grow in peace.

We ran two groups of twelve students through the training program; 12 students in Tororo and 12 students in Gulu are now able to build their entrepreneurship skills and increase awareness of sustainable energy.

We are happy to share this image sent by World Vision Kenya. These are solar baked buns produced and sold by our friends at Yier Ngima in Siaya, Kenya.

This group started with a SOL5 roaster to roast peanuts to make peanut butter. They don’t grow enough peanuts to be roasting full-time, and had seen solar baking at Koptige, so Lorin and Jared created a simple baking rack for their roaster and these solar buns are the result of this change !

Their SOL5 was part of our pilot program in Kenya with World Vision and with sponsorship of Wärtsilä.

Consolata and the other ladies peeling peanuts in the shade while their bread bakes :

By diversifying their business, the Yier Ngima group is increasing uptime on their SOL5 and the members are earning more money, with their business based on sweet, clean solar energy.

We’d like to introduce you to Eva Nangira, one of the youth mentors at the SmartUp Factory Tororo Hub. Eva is a very attentive student and really grasps the significance of our SOL5 oven. In this short video, she describes the impact that the SOL5 oven is having on her life.

Eva focuses on the impact that this business will have on her and the other young women being trained. Women in Uganda face serious challenges when they enter the workforce and it is our hope that along with SmartUp Factory and Plan International, we can empower many more women to become sustainable self employed.

It’s very clear that when you want to do things, you have positivity and an entrepreneurial mindset, the access to energy, to a clean and powerful energy source, is really key. We are so grateful because thanks to entrepreneurs like Eva and all the groups from Kenya and Tanzania, we are proving that there is an appropriate clean energy solution for all these people that are not in developed economies. It is more or less expected that developing countries will develop and grow like Western countries have, but here at GoSol.solar we believe that solutions must be adapted to their reality, and their reality is: tons of sun that they can harvest to be free from fossil fuels and reduce deforestation.

SOL5 replaces fire wood, charcoal, LPG and poor electric grids to power activities during all the sunny season. During the rainy season, the entrepreneurs have to use a mix which is fine because they made savings the rest of the year and they can afford it.

The Sustainable Development Goals

Solar thermal energy is accessible for all and once widely implemented, will have dramatic and far reaching effects on our world. The Sustainable Development Goals have been established by the UN for the 2030 Agenda. The 17 SDG’s are the pillars of a new society, based on sustainable development for all.

Our Concentrated Solar Power solution is directly impacting 7 of these goals and affects some others.

Goal 1 End Poverty ​Universal access to solar thermal energy will create new economic opportunities for millions of people in food processing. Energy plays a key role in breaking the poverty trap; when people use clean solar energy that is locally built they can process food and create products with added value.

Goal 5 ​Gender Equality ​By empowering women and girls with access to free, clean solar energy, they have more time to go to school and engage in meaningful income generating activities instead of chopping wood. They’ll also benefit from better health due to reduced exposure to toxic smoke.

Goal 7 Affordable and Clean Energy ​Solar energy is one of the cleanest and most cost effective sources of energy. GoSol solar thermal technology has a return on investment of 18 months.

Goal 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth ​GoSol technology promotes decent work conditions due to the elimination of harmful pollution from burning biomass and enhances economic growth by balancing fossil fuel driven trade deficits while reducing the wasted labour represented by biomass collection and burning.

Goal 10 Reduce Inequalities ​Sunshine is distributed more equally than many other sources of energy. By enhancing distributed access to clean, free solar energy at all levels of society from smallholder farmers to industry, GoSol technology is reducing the inequalities inherent in centralized energy systems.

Goal 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities ​Cities and communities are only as sustainable as the energy upon which they are based. By enhancing access to renewable and clean solar thermal energy, GoSol technology is ensuring communities can thrive long term.

Goal 13 Climate Action ​Solar thermal technology reduces deforestation, particulate pollution and the emission of greenhouse gases. GoSol’s solar thermal technology can be implemented globally to make an impact within the 12 years limit set by the most recent IPCC report.

Recently the International Panel on Climate Change has called for sweeping changes to society in order to minimize the damage of climate change and GoSol technology can play a big role in that.

Our budding entrepreneurs in Uganda have a lot to say and we’ll be sharing more of their stories and perspectives in the coming weeks, stay tuned.