Hilaria wins ENERGIA’s Women Entrepreneur of 2017 Award!
25 July 2017
Hilaria Paschal is a successful entrepreneur because she never gives up and is not afraid to try new things in her business. In 2016, she kept her Solar Sister business going in spite of caring for her sick child and dipping into her savings for the medical costs. Hilaria truly exemplifies Solar Sister’s values of grit and sisterhood! For this reason, Solar Sister nominated Hilaria for ENERGIA’s Women Entrepreneur of the Year Award. As part of receiving the award, Hilaria travelled to New York City to represent Solar Sister at the 2017 Sustainable Energy for All Forum. While there, she shared her experiences and challenges with sector leaders and innovators and was able to meet other entrepreneurs like herself from around the world. “Hilaria was one of the earliest Solar Sister entrepreneurs in Tanzania, introduced to us by our partners at African Wildlife Foundation. She is a wonderful example of a strong woman who lives Solar Sister’s values. She has not only improved her and her family’s life by being a Solar Sister, but also has been a leader to make sure that other women in her community benefit from the ripple effect of Solar Sister’s green business opportunity.” – Neha Misra, Solar Sister’s Chief Collaboration Officer Hilaria also received 1,000 EURO as part of the ENERGIA award in recognition of her leadership and dedication to empowering women in her community. Hilaria plans to use the funds to take English lessons, add capital to her business and pay for her daughter’s school fees…
Read moreOumy wins ENERGIA Women Entrepreneurship Award
7 June 2017
Oumy Ngom is one of the proud winners of the ENERGIA Women Entrepreneurship Award, getting the chance to share her experience at the SEforALL Forum in New York, 3 – 5 April 2017, and going home with a prize of €1,000 to support her business. ENERGIA rewarded five women from Asia and Africa to recognise their outstanding work and encourage them to perform even better in the future. Oumy is one of those women who, having demonstrated her motivation and desire to develop economic activities within her community, won the opportunity to share her experience as a woman entrepreneur in Eastern Senegal at the 2017 SEforALL Forum in New York, and go home with a cash prize to support the development of her business. A sales agent of solar lanterns and improved cookstoves in the outskirts of Tambacounda, Senegal, she also runs a food processing unit operate by her women’s group. When I started selling solar lights and improved cookstoves, I didn’t realise I could also use these products to increase the production of my agricultural processing unit. The stoves are great for processing jams and others products in a timely, healthy manner. With the prize, I would now like to invest in more renewables such as solar panels to power the unit. All nominees have been actively engaged in the Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme for at least one year and have been continuously running a profitable business for at least three quarters of a year. They have all demonstrated clear and…
Read moreOumy Ngom makes energy available to her community through the sale of solar lamps and improved cookstoves
31 May 2017
Born in Tambacounda in 1971, Oumy was one of the few girls of her generation to attend secondary schooling in the region. Widowed for 17 years, she took care of the education and subsistence of her children – which made her want to support other women in difficulty like her. In 2005, Oumy became President of the CESIRI group, which aims to empower women through the processing of forest products, fruits and vegetables – all the while improving nutrition in the region. Today, CESIRI is a network of women including 47 organisations and 1,310 members active in the processing of local agricultural products such as couscous, thiakry, corn, arraw, papaya jam, concentrated syrup of bissap, ginger and fonio. The network also carries out community health activities, including awareness raising against neo-natal mortality, family planning and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. CESIRI also provides literacy classes for its members and anyone wishing to benefit from their services. After years of hard work, Oumy is now working with the women in the network to make clean energy available people in Tambacounda, through the sale of solar lamps and improved cookstoves. I joined the group to bring change, focussing first on malnutrition in the community and then on health and education. Now I want to do something about the energy shortages that we face and change the quality of life for people throughout the region. – Oumy Ngom Hard working, she now hopes to build a fully equipped solar processing unit to avoid regular cuts that occur through the national electricity grid. Solar energy offers a reliable and cost-effective option for companies whose…
Read moreEconomic crisis in Kédougou hits hard on micro energy businesses
12 May 2017Due to the economic crisis that hit the region of Kédougou last year, Energy 4 Impact was forced to end its operations in the area. The region’s economy depends mostly on gold mining, but with one of the main mines closing in 2016, the area’s economic stability took a hit, making it a challenge for entrepreneurs to sell clean energy products to customers in their local communities. Fatoumata and the other 50 women entrepreneurs that we supported in the region could no longer sustain their businesses. Very few of them could provide the minimum required up-front capital or collaterals (25%) to enable them to get a loan or repay credit to the suppliers. Energy 4 Impact now concentrates its efforts on neighbouring Tambacounda, supporting 160 women in the sale of energy services and products, as well as productive use of energy through solar refrigeration. Click here to follow the stories of Germaine Dione and Oumy Ngom in Tambacounda.
Read moreMy dream is to build a house for my cattle.
17 February 2017Halima Mdee worked very hard in 2016 to grow her business from the ground up and was able to deliver clean energy access to 280 people in her community. Halima’s bestselling product is the d.Light S2, a small, affordable solar lantern that replaces the need for kerosene in rural households. Halima herself uses this light and saves 2,500 TZS a week in lighting costs alone. Halima started off this new year by increasing her stock of the S2 immediately. Halima hopes to earn enough money this year to build a house for her cattle to better protect them from predators. Her main strategy will be to use her bicycle from Solar Sister to find new markets and reach communities that are even farther off the grid. My dream is to build a house for my cattle. I hope that I will sell more products so I can accomplish my dream. – Halima Mdee
Read more1 August 2016
“A Technology fair or ‘Tech Fair’ is a showcase event to introduce the technologies to community members. During the tech fair, people are able to test and try out the products themselves and choose which ones they want. It’s a great way to sell the technologies! I managed to make a lot of sales tonight, as the solar lights shone brightly and attracted a lot of people.” — Mama Emi Tech Fairs, organised by Kopernik and/or by the Wonder Woman independently. Since joining Kopernik, Mama Emi has done about 15 Tech Fairs both for her own community and neighbouring communities. This is the first time she had a Tech Fair at night and she sold more than 10 technologies, where usually she sells 4-5 technologies during a day-time Tech Fair.
Read moreMs. Bimala Rai, ICS Entrepreneur
29 March 2016I am Bimala Rai, 32 years of age and living in Maina Maini village, Udayapur district of Nepal. I am a single parent of two children: a daughter and a son. I have been separated from my husband since last five years. To sustain my children I started operating a small shop in the street selling ‘chatpate’ – a spicy fast food. Fortunately, I came to know about improved cookstoves and the training being organized by WEE-Nepal Project in July 2015. I was selected in the training which provided me a new skill and also a key to boost my confidence. I looked upon this skill as a prime source of income for my children’s upbringing. Today I work together with Kalpana Rai another WEE-Nepal trainee and I am so encouraged to move ahead with this work. To start with the installation myself and Kalpana Rai have jointly borrowed a loan of NPR 150,000 from Sahayougi Saving and Credit Cooperative, a Local Financial Institute. We have invested this amount into place orders for the metallic components for the stove so as to expedite selling and installation of the stoves. I am very excited and hopeful in this endeavor. However the challenge is on demand collection and encouraging behavior change; “Now I understand what the importance of improved cookstoves in our kitchen is. But do I have to pay for the cookstoves?” these are common questions asked by the village community when we interact with them. I need to motivate them…
Read more18 February 2016
Sometimes it’s hard for me to keep track of all sales, installments, and payments. So, I always record all of Kopernik’s technology sales history in this book – that way not a single Rupiah will go missing.
Read moreHow it all started
18 February 2016It started out just like any other day: I opened the small shop in my house and spent the afternoon weaving traditional Flores ikat. My house is located on the main road of Bena Traditional Village. People who are passing through or visiting the ancient village often stop to buy snacks, drinks, or even ikat from my shop. Little did I know, that sunny day in June turned out to be the start of a new venture. It was a little after midday, when a friendly man on a motorbike stopped in front of my house. I could tell that he was resting from a long journey. He was carrying some sort of stove on the back of his bike. I was curious so I asked him, “Hey, what is that?” It was a biomass cookstove and according to the man – his name is Widi, Kopernik’s Senior Program Officer – it’s much safer and more efficient compared to our traditional three stone fire. As a mother who spend a lot of time in the kitchen, of course I was interested! Widi then introduced me to Kopernik and their Wonder Women program. He told me I could sell the cookstoves, and other technologies such as solar lamps and water filters. I would earn a margin from every sale. I got even more interested. I actually have no sales experience, but since I need no capital to start, I might as well give it a try! I decided to by one…
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