Reyna Díaz checks the marinated pork she is cooking in a solar cooker at her home in a poor neighbourhood of Vicente Guerrero, Villa de Zaachila municipality, in the southwestern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The use of solar cookers has made is possible for 200 local women to save on fuel and stop using firewood, providing environmental and health benefits. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
VILLA DE ZAACHILA, Mexico, Aug 13 2019 (IPS)

Reyna Díaz cooks beans, chicken, pork and desserts in her solar cooker, which she sets up in the open courtyard of her home in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of this town in southwestern Mexico.

“My family likes the way it cooks things. I use it almost every day, it has been a big help to me,” Díaz told IPS as she mixed the ingredients for cochinita pibil, a traditional pork dish marinated with spices and achiote, a natural coloring.

She then placed the pot on the aluminum sheets of the cooker, which reflect the sunlight that heats the receptacle.

Before receiving the solar cooker in March, Díaz, who sells atole, a traditional hot Mexican drink based on corn or wheat dough, and is raising her son and daughter on her own, did not believe it was possible to cook with the sun’s rays."I learned while working with the local women. It was hard, like breaking stones; people knew nothing about it. Now people are more open, because there is more information about the potential of solar energy. In rural areas, people understand it more." -- Lorena Harp

“I didn’t know it could be done, I wondered if the food would actually be cooked. It’s a wonderful thing,” said this resident of the poor neighbourhood of Vicente Guerrero, in Villa de Zaachila, a municipality of 43,000 people in the state of Oaxaca, some 475 km south of Mexico City.

One thing the inhabitants of Vicente Guerrero have in common is poverty. But although they live in modest houses that in some cases are tin shacks lining unpaved streets and have no sewage system, they do have electricity and drinking water. The women alternate their informal sector jobs with the care of their families.

Diaz used to cook with firewood and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which she now uses less so it lasts longer. “I’ve saved a lot,” she said.

Women in this neighborhood were taught how to use the solar cookers and then became
promoters, organising demonstrations in their homes to exchange recipes, taste their dishes and spread the word about the benefits and positive changes that the innovative stoves have brought.

The solar cookers are low-tech devices that use reflective panels to focus sunlight on a pot in the middle.

Their advantages include being an alternative for rural cooking, because they make it possible to cook without electricity or solid or fossil fuels, pasteurising water to make it drinkable, reducing logging and pollution, helping people avoid breathing smoke from woodstoves, and using renewable energy.

The drawbacks are that they do not work on rainy or cloudy days, it takes a long time to cook the food, compared to traditional stoves, and they have to be used outdoors.

In Mexico, a country of 130 million people, some 19 million use solid fuels for cooking, which caused some 15,000 premature deaths in 2016 from the ingestion of harmful particles, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).

Lorena Harp (L), head of a project that promotes the use of solar cookers in Mexico, shows retired teacher Irma Jiménez how to assemble the device, in the poor neighborhood of Vicente Guerrero, Villa de Zaachila municipality, in the southwestern state of Oaxaca. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

The main fuel consumed by 79 percent of these households is LPG, followed by wood or charcoal (11 percent) and natural gas (seven percent).

In Oaxaca, gas and firewood each account for 49 percent of household consumption.

Of the state’s more than four million inhabitants, 70 percent were living in poverty in 2016 and nearly 27 percent in extreme poverty, according to Inegi. Twenty-six percent lived in substandard, crowded housing and 62 percent lacked access to basic services.

Oaxaca is also one of the three Mexican states with the highest levels of energy poverty, which means households that spend more than 10 percent of their income on energy.

Solar cookers can help combat the deprivation.

They first began to be distributed in Oaxaca in 2004. In 2008, activists created the initiative “Solar energy for mobile food stalls in Mexico”, sponsored by three Swiss institutions: the city of Geneva, the SolarSpar cooperative and the non-governmental organisation GloboSol.

Cocina Solar Mexico, a collective dedicated to the use of solar energy for cooking, was founded in 2009. With the support of the non-governmental Solar Household Energy (SHE), based in Washington, an economical, light-weight prototype was built.

In 2016, SHE launched a pilot project in indigenous communities to assess how widely it would be accepted.

“I learned while working with the local women. It was hard, like breaking stones; people knew nothing about it. Now people are more open, because there is more information about the potential of solar energy. In rural areas, people understand it more,” Lorena Harp, head of the initiative, told IPS.

The four-litre pot, which has a useful life of five to 10 years, costs about $25, of which SHE provides half. The group has distributed about 200 solar cookers in 10 communities.

Harp said it is a gender issue, because “women are empowered, they have gained respect in their families.”

The southwestern Mexican state of Oaxaca fails to take advantage of is great solar power potential. The picture shows a rooftop at a solar panel factory in Oaxaca City, the state capital. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Despite its potential, Oaxaca does not take advantage of its high levels of solar radiation. Last June, it was listed among the 10 Mexican states with the lowest levels of distributed (decentralised) generation, less than 500 kilowatts, connected to the national power grid, according to the government’s Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE).

In the first half of the year, Oaxaca had an installed photovoltaic capacity of 6.69 megawatts with 747 interconnection contracts, in a country where distributed generation only involves solar energy.

This Latin American country registered 17,767 contracts for almost 125 megawatts (MW), almost the same volume as in the same period in 2018 -when they totaled 35,661 for 233.56 MW, although there were more permits. Since 2007, CRE has registered 112,660 contracts for 817.85 MW of solar power.

Luís Calderón, president of the Oaxaca Energy Cluster, says things have evolved quickly.

But “there is a lack of precise, reliable information and certainty about the savings achieved with distributed generation, which is generated for self-consumption while the surplus is fed into the grid. In addition, there is no policy in the state,” Calderón, also a member of the National Solar Energy Association, told IPS.

In 2018, Mexico registered a total installed capacity of 70,000 MW, three percent more than the previous year. Gas-fired combined cycle plants contributed 36 percent, conventional thermal 17 percent, hydroelectric 18 percent, coal almost eight percent, wind just under seven percent, and solar only 2.6 percent.

But the government of left-wing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office in December, is driving the exploitation of fossil fuels and standing in the way of the growth of renewable energies.

It plans to modify the Business Ecocredit initiative, led by the government’s Electric Energy Saving Trust for micro, small and medium enterprises for the acquisition of efficient appliances. The measures include eliminating the 14 percent subsidy and a limit of some 20,000 dollars in financing, but the government has yet to define its future.

In addition, the Oaxaca government’s plan to create two cooperatives for energy for agricultural irrigation does not yet have the 1.75 million dollars needed for two 500-kilowatt solar plants in the municipality of San Pablo Huixtepec to serve 1,200 farmers in 35 irrigation units.

The local women don’t plan to stop using the solar cookers, in a neighbourhood ideal for deploying solar panels and water heaters. “We’re going to keep using it, we’ve seen that it works. We’re going to promote this,” Díaz said, while checking that her stew wasn’g burning.

The SHE assessment found that the solar cookers were widely accepted and have had a positive impact, as nearly half of the local women who use them have reduced by more than 50 percent their use of stoves that cause pollution. Some use the pots up to six times a week, and they have proven to be high quality, durable and affordable. Users also report that the solar cookers have saved them time.

Harp said more partners and government support were needed. “There’s still a long way to go, there are many shortfalls. Something is missing to generate truly widespread use, perhaps a comprehensive policy,” she said.

A young woman admires a parabolic solar cooker at a solar fair in Rusape, Zimbabwe. Credit: Tonderayi Mukeredzi/IPS

By Tonderayi Mukeredzi
RUSAPE, Zimbabwe, May 7 2018 (IPS)

Every year, Amos Chandiringa, 43, a farmer in Nemaire village in Makoni district in northeastern Zimbabwe, laboriously waters his tobacco nursery with a watering can. The toil of the job often leaves him without the energy or time to do other household chores.

“I live near a dam, so I’ve access to plenty of water, but I cannot do much with the water because I lack the necessary technology to mechanise my farming. Installing an electric or diesel water pump have been options, but that is expensive,” he tells IPS.Government, solar last mile distributors and development agencies say using solar electricity to power irrigation pumps, process harvests and for preservation of crops can transform rural lives.

In February, Chandiringa was privileged to host a combined farmers’ field day and solar fair at his homestead for the first time in his area and in the history of his farming career.

Solar entrepreneur Isaac Nyakusendwa says farmers like Chandiriga could make light work of their farming and multiply their yields if they used solar pumps to draw water from the dam to irrigate their crops or to use in the home.

Although farming is the occupation of most people in Rusape and other areas of rural Zimbabwe, the usage of solar photovoltaic systems remains limited mainly to lighting and entertainment.

Government, solar last mile distributors and development agencies say using solar electricity to power irrigation pumps, process harvests and for preservation of crops can transform rural lives by providing better crop yields, higher incomes and reducing the physical labor of farming.

Nemaire councillor Sam Maungwe says farmers in his area earn good money, mostly from tobacco farming, but due to poor knowledge of solar technologies, many of them spend their earnings on radios and household furniture.

“Farmers here largely grow tobacco, hence the area suffers from a double strain of wood cutting for tobacco curing and firewood. The use of solar in farming by our farmers would be good as it will lengthen their farming season and increase their income,” Maungwe tells IPS. “But more importantly, we want our farmers to extend the use of solar to tobacco barns so that they stop the indiscriminate cutting down of trees for tobacco curing.”

Petronella Karima, an extension officer, says there should be more platforms to educate rural farmers and expose them to new, affordable technologies because most of them are not aware of the capabilities of solar products.

“Many use solar for entertainment. Some have big solar home systems in their homes, but they don’t know that they can use it to water their crops and install water in their homes. With the knowledge they got from the solar exhibition, I believe many will now use solar to irrigate their crops and to harvest water,” Karima says.

Chiedza Mazaiwana, the Power for All Campaign Manager at Practical Action Zimbabwe, says awareness of renewable energy solutions is relatively low, with market penetration of solar lighting and home systems estimated at only 3%.

She says consumer literacy on renewable energy products is critical in unlocking the huge potential of renewable products in off grid rural communities.

“Lack of knowledge is a major barrier to the development of the solar market. Most potential rural customers are unaware of recent advances in solar technology, reductions in the cost of the technology, availability of financing solutions such as the pay-as you-go (PAYG) model that allows them to access technologies and products that would ordinarily be beyond their reach,” she adds.

The past distribution of poor quality products and installations have also undermined trust and reduced demand, making it very hard for businesses to establish a presence in rural areas.

However, as part of a rural solar market development effort, government, renewable energy firms and development agencies are concertedly using field days and solar fairs to encourage the use of solar energy as a way of improving livelihoods in rural areas.

Solar fairs are emerging as a key platform for awareness raising and consumer education on solar for off-grid communities and for solar distributors to create business linkages with farmers. Other methods include media campaigns and the use of trusted opinion leaders such as chiefs, head teachers and faith leaders to spread the word about the novelty of renewable energy solutions. This method has proved particularly effective in East Africa.

Nyakusenda, who is the chairman of the Renewable Energy Association of Zimbabwe, a grouping of solar distribution companies says, “Lack of knowledge about solar energy and its capabilities is one of the many barriers scuttling the development of the solar market. Through combined field day and solar fairs, we are facilitating, and giving farmers a perfect and rare opportunity to shop for and to interact with suppliers of solar products in one place thereby expose them to quality products and genuine companies.”

He says the PAYG model allows the farmers to pay a nominal deposit for a renewable product of their choice, and finish the payment in small, cheap monthly instalments.

During the fairs, young males and females have been particularly attracted to solar powered lighting, entertainment and communication gadgets while women liked solar cooking stoves and older males got attracted to water pumping systems.

Practical Action’s gender officer Tony Zibani says the use of solar technology can ease the triple burden of work on women and reduce gender-based violence in the homes as chores performed by women would be lessened by technology.

Over 60% of Zimbabwe’s population do not have access to energy and rely on solid biomass fuels such as firewood, charcoal and kerosene as their main cooking fuel – solutions that are expensive, unreliable and environmentally unsustainable.

While the demand for energy in rural areas is increasing, the provision of electricity is skewed greatly towards higher-income households and urban areas, leaving out a large proportion of the rural population.

Mazaiwana asserts that decentralized electrification solutions are the fastest, most cost-effective and sustainable approach to universal energy access, in addition to providing economic opportunities for communities.

Engineer Magan Kawar (wearing pink), who left school after third grade, teaches a class of international students in solar technology. Kawar has trained 900 women from over 20 countries. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
TILONIA, India, Mar 7 2017 (IPS)

On a summer morning in 2008, Magan Kawar decided to leave her village for a job. The very next day, her parents-in-law excommunicated her.

“They were very angry,” says the 52-year-old mother of two from Bhawani Khera village of Rajasthan’s Ajmer, a district 400 kms west of New Delhi."The world over, the lives of women are the same – there are too many challenges, but together, we can help each other rewrite our stories.” --Magan Kawar

“Women never stepped out of the home alone. To go outside of the village and work in an office alongside men was a disgrace. My parents-in-law said I had brought upon them that disgrace.”

But even as angry relatives and shocked neighbors watched in utter dismay, Kawar traveled to Tilonia, a village an hour away. Here, along with her husband, she became a technician at a rural innovation centre. As the world shut its doors behind her, her husband assured her: “Everything would be alright one day.”

Eight years later, Kawar who never studied beyond the third grade, is one of India’s top renewable energy experts. She is a lead instructor at the Barefoot College in Tilonia, a unique innovation and training centre where rural women from across India and the world are trained in solar technologies.

A college for barefoot engineers

The Barefoot College of Tilonia was established four decades ago by Bunker Roy, a visionary educationist and environmentalist who envisoned a place where women with little or no formal education could learn livelihood skills and play a leadership role in their communities.

The skills taught here are many, including sewing, welding and carpentry, among others, but the flagship programme of the college is a six-month biannual course in solar technology.

The course accepts women of 35 years and older, mostly from economically or socially underprivileged communities living in areas that have no electricity. There are two separate learning centres for Indian and international trainees who are called ‘Solar Mamas.’

Each of the Solar Mamas is selected by her own community and sent to the college by their respective governments where they are provided a fellowship by the government of India. It covers their cost of their stay at the college campus, including food and accommodation.

Currently, there are 30 Solar Mamas from 13 countries of Asia and Africa, including India, Myanmar, Syria, Mali, Sierra Leone and Botswana. The latest group is slated to graduate on Mar. 15 – the day they will receive 700 dollars as a stipend for the six months they spent here. For many, this is also an amount they can use as seed money to start a business in their home country.

Amarmani Oraon, an indigenous woman from the conflict zone of Chhattisgarh in India, learns to make the circuit for a solar lantern. Oraon, who is not able to read or write, will soon become a Solar Mama – a barefoot solar engineer. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

Learning through sign language

On the final Sunday of February, a group of local youths graduated from the Barefoot College after learning some livelihood skills. At their graduation ceremony, each of the students was presented with a solar lantern – made by the women solar technicians of the college.

The circuit of the lantern is complex, with dozens of minuscule electronic chips assembled on a 4-inch long plate. To teach this complex technology to the trainees when neither teacher nor student speak English or share a common language may seem extremely daunting to others, but the barefoot instructors have their own innovative methodology.

Explains Magan Kawar, “We first make a list of the most important parts and equipment and begin by making each trainee learn by heart the names. That is essential. After that, we communicate by pointing at a part, signs and actions. For example, I will take a circuit plate, point at a part and say, ‘press’. Or, I will then take a cable from the power testing machine, touch this to the plate, show it to the trainees and say, ’power testing’. They follow suit.”

There are no certificates awarded to the graduates, but then, this college is not a place that upholds formal educational norms. Instead, it practices a “very, very simple” method that champions imparting education that “truly empowers,” says Bunker Roy, who is also the director of the college.

“Imagine a woman who never traveled out of her village. Can’t read or write. Takes a flight and travels for 19 hours…comes to a strange country, strange food, strange language and in six months, she becomes a solar engineer using sign language. She knows more about solar engineering than a college graduate. What can be more exhilarating than this?” asks Roy.

Women from local villages in India with solar lanterns made by Solar Mamas of the Barefoot College in Tilonia. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

Honing climate leadership skills

Elizabeth Halauafu, 42, is from Tonga, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean which considered is the third most vulnerable country on earth to rising sea levels from climate change. Despite its high vulnerability, however, the country has been slow in adopting climate adaptation measures, including renewable energy.

But as Tonga finally wakes up to play a stronger role in climate action, Bayes could become one of the pioneers in rural solar technology thanks to her training at the Barefoot College.

“I have already learned about solar installations. I can build a circuit, assemble and repair solar lights. Once I return to Tonga, I will be happy to join a job that will allow me to use my skills. I and my husband may also start a solar venture,” says Bayes, before recalling that when she returns home, the season of oceanic storms will begin when electricity will be scarce.

A place to share, forget and rise above

Solar Mamas Hala Naseef and and Azhar Sarhan are from Damascus. The government may try to show Damascus as an oasis in an otherwise war-torn Syria, but the ground realities are different: there are frequent power outrage and everyone lives in fear of a total collapse of the grid. Solar technology is not very popular, but could soon become the only source of power if the war does not end soon, says the duo.

It has been a long journey from Damascus to the Barefoot College for both Sarhan and Naseef, but both are quick to point out that the past five months, despite daunting odds, have been a very enriching experience.

“I miss home and the food…but to see other women who have come from difficult places, we forget our own struggle,“ says Naseef.

Lila Devi Gujjar, who teaches alongside Magan Kawar, says that most of their trainees come from conflict zones and carry a ‘burden of pain.”

“Many of them are survivors of abuse, violence and are broken in spirit. But here they find a way to forget their past and get new hope to rebuild their lives,” says Gujjar.

Kawar shares the story of Chantal, one of her recent trainees from the Democratic Republic of Congo who was raped several times in her home country. “It was her first escape from the violence. She first cried for days, then just immersed herself in learning. Somehow, she found our informal learning environment very soothing.

“And we also realized that the world over, the lives of women are the same – there are too many challenges, but together, we can help each other rewrite our stories,” says Kawar, who wrote her own story a few years ago by sending her two children to universities and inviting her parents-in-law to visit the Barefoot College.

“They came, saw me teaching and my mother-in-law said, ‘But it is just women educating each other!’ That day, she welcomed me back into the family,” says the barefoot engineer with a smile.

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