Robyn Williams on ABC Radio National: “Jeremy Leggett describes kerosene lamps as the vampires of developing communities in Africa. They suck financial resources to provide pitiful light, noxious fumes, lost houses and schools due to accidents, as well as damaging emissions.”
“110 million households in Africa don’t have electricity. Population projections point to 250 million households in future years. SunnyMoney is the biggest solar lighting company in Africa. Sales have exceeded one million units with profits being returned to local communities.”
Interview starts at 10.20 in
Note: “Profits are returned to local communities”. More exactly, all profits are recycled for use in the mission of eradicating kerosene lanterns form Africa by 2020. So they may not be used locally with respect to the communities where lanterns were sold.
Also, please note that Cate Blanchett’s commentary was recorded when SolarAid was starting out, in 2007. Then, we were assembling solar lights in a small local operation, hoping to prove the case for manufacturing in Africa. We couldn’t make that work. Chinese imports were much cheaper, and much higher quality. On the principle that we could help more people go solar with these products, we subsequently became an importer to the continent, and a pure sales-and-marketing entity.
Future Today
