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An Electrifying New Year
Robert V. Lange
Greetings!

Happy New Year!

2020 is already bringing interesting and exciting developments. 

Read below about the latest solar-powered micro-grid installation , and how collaboration on that work benefits the people.

We are happy to let you know that the Appeal results are growing and already fueling progress.

All gifts received through January 31 will be counted towards the Appeal. Will we break last year's record? I'll share a full report next month when all the results are in.

In the meantime, I send you my gratitude and all best wishes for a successful, peaceful, and fulfilling 2020. 
With appreciation,

Twende!

January, 2020
An electrification story
Watch a great video featuring ICSEE installers at work and talking about the micro-grid projects
The ICSEE solar-powered micro-grids are a lot more than just an idea. They are a response to the real needs of real people.
A few of the children at the newly-electrified Armaswai boma
Nangai Armaswai is one of the many men whose family benefits from the stoves and solar program that we established in collaboration with G-Adventures , a travel company specializing in small group adventure tours. Read Nangai's story below.
 
Through the ICSEE collaboration, G-Adventure's clients receive a lot more than the dancing, singing, and bead presentations usually provided for entertaining tourists on safari.

Instead, on the way to the wildlife conservation areas, the visitors have the chance to share an authentic experience with Maasai women and men working for a better life.

These tourists have a special opportunity to spend time with the people of the Project communities. Visitors can participate in installing the ICSEE smoke-removing efficient stoves and the solar lighting systems for the woman of the house and her kids.
Visitors try their hand at cooking Ugali, the national dish of Tanzania, on an ICSEE smoke-removing cookstove
In return for facilitating an opportunity like this, G-Adventures provides ICSEE with funds for a stove and a single-home solar system. Through this support, those tourists know that their visit is benefiting the lives of the people in a meaningful way.

ICSEE trained women and men on electrical systems over the years, and now has a solar-powered micro-grid installation team of 24 who travel where needed
The need for more light
The spotted hyena (also called laughing hyena) is a top predator in Tanzania
Sometimes the people need more than a stove and a single light.

Nangai Armaswai's boma is in the village of Esilalei. Late last year, hyenas attacked Nangai’s goat corral and killed four goats.

Nangai had seen a grid providing light for all the houses and the corrals at his friend Lomnyak’s boma nearby.He surmised that a greater scale of electrification could deter predators like these, as it did at the other boma. 
Boma with solar-powered micro-grid electrification. See the corral on the right
Nangai approached the ICSEE community for help. Together, we worked out a way to share costs. He paid 60,000 shillings ($25) to electrify each home and for each of two corrals.

With the grid installed, the home of each of his seven wives and all his corrals would have light. And the corral lights would stay on throughout the night. The Project added $800 to his $225 and on January 11, our experienced electrical team put in a good day’s work and installed the grid.
The new grid has a solar panel, battery, controller, and underground wires going to all the homes and corrals. There are lights throughout and a phone charger in each home.

 We are very happy with this grid. It represents the informed cooperation that occurs when the community and the Project are linked as collaborators, working for a better life.
 
The location of this boma is very special. It is right along the principal road taken by all tourists going to the great wildlife parks. It is visible to all government cars and commercial transport moving along the main road across north-central Tanzania.

It is a remarkable sight. Every evening and throughout the night, the boma transmits the news:  life can be better when work and resources are used to meet real needs.
Light at night--a remarkable sight in rural East Africa
Thank you to Philip Lange, G-Adventures and Zoom TV for media
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