Electrifying Rural Malawi!

In April 2012, the Scottish Government announced IRRI's most recent partnership project, 'Rural Off-Grid Energy Kiosks', to be one of the winning projects funded by the Scottish Government Malawi Development Programme 2012/ 2013. 

IRRI is thrilled to be lead partner in such an innovative project, and looks forward to working with Scottish partner, David Livingstone Centre for Sustainability, and Malawian partners Renew'N'Able, Concern Universal Malawi, Eqnon, Leadership for Environment and Development Southern and Eastern Africa (LEAD SEA), WASHted, and Airtel Malawi. Drawing on the experience and strengths of the different partner organisations, the project promises to make a real positive impact on the lives of many communities living in rural Malawi.

At present, only 8% of the population in Malawi has access to electricity, mainly in urban centres. In rural Malawi, where the majority of the Malawian population lives, less than 1% of the population has access to electricity. Non-electrified communities rely on paraffin, which aside from being damaging to health, is becoming scarcer in rural areas and prices are ever increasing. The main aim of the Rural Off-Grid Energy Kiosks project is to contribute an innovative and viable off-grid community electrification solution which has real potential to increase rural Malawian's socio-economic opportunities.

The Rural Off-Grid Energy Kiosk project will install solar powered energy kiosks in rural Malawi, allowing households to buy and charge up batteries for their domestic use, therefore reducing their dependency on increasingly expensive paraffin and improving their access to efficient lighting, communication, and information. Since project kick-off in April, the first steps have been taken and we hope to be lighting up the homes of many communities living in rural Malawi over the coming months!

A successful year for Resource for Life

Last week saw the concluding session of the Resource for Life programme, as our primary schools rounded off a successful school year and packed up for the summer holidays.

Since the idea was born in Autumn 2011, the Resource for Life programme has developed in leaps and bounds, thanks to funding from the Robertson Trust, a donation from Nairns, and funds raised by the Runner Bean Team from the Great Winter Run.

Throughout the first year of the programme, 60 children have benefited from Resource for Life, learning the life skills necessary to help them access the resources they need for their lives from their local environments. The children have learnt how to grow their own food using low cost urban gardening techniques, how to recycle and reuse household materials to create useful items, how to use local water resources efficiently, how to harness local energy, and how to save energy in the home.

To recap and document the activities and achievements of Resource for Life 2012, we teamed up with London based children's arts charity, House of Fairytales, which is working with local schools and community groups to produce a journal which will be distributed in the Edinburgh Art Festival. This was a wonderful opportunity for the Resource for Life classes to showcase their learning, as they reported their food growing and designed advertisements for their DIY natural household cleaning products.

Aside from achieving encouraging learning outcomes, both children and facilitators thoroughly enjoyed participating in Resource for Life. Over the summer, we plan to learn from our experiences gained over the past year and develop Resource for Life, ready to make a comeback in the upcoming academic year, 2012/ 2013. If you're part of, or know a school that would like to discuss working with Resource for Life, please contact us at amy.clarke@irri.org.uk or 0131 202 1649.

For now, happy holidays everyone!