Neha Misra, co-founder and ENERGIA partner Solar Sister is featured in a nice article by Forbes.com:
The first time Neha Misra visited the Sundarbans, a beautiful island of mangrove forests, her life was forever changed. It was 2005, and she was working for a large sustainability think tank in India, researching the economics of rural electrification. On the trip, she spoke to women about their first experiences with solar light and how it changed their lives.
One woman told a story of how much safer she felt at night. This was a tropical area with a lot of snakes, and if she ever got up in the dark, she was afraid she would be bitten. With a simple solar light, that risk was almost entirely gone.
“That was really profound because I had not seen electricity in that context,” Misra said. “That stayed with me.”
Misra, the co-founder of Solar Sister, which empowers African women to become entrepreneurs and sell solar lights and chargers in their communities, grew up in the urban area of Delhi, India. She had access to power most of the time, but as India’s population and economy grew, she experienced power cuts, reading by candlelight, and not being able to study while she was younger. As she got older, her life became “increasingly more electrified,” she said.
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