“Take a gap year and save the planet!” This could be the motto of the Kenyan based organisation “Ecofinder”. Founded in 1995 the Kenyan grass roots organisation helps communities around Lake Victoria to lead a more sustainable life. GLOBAL IDEAS has invited one of Ecofinder’s numerous volunteers to write about his experience:

 A lot of people especially in developing countries have no acess to electricity. That’s why most of them use kerosene lamps for at least a little bit light at night. But this is quite dangerous because of the open fire and it’s unhealthy for the people because of the smoke. Therefore Ecofinder started a very interesting project, the “Solar Lamps Rentals”, in March 2012.

The project’s idea and structure is quite simple but very efficient:
After a training about small-scale business and solar lamps, Ecofinder provides a new “Solar Lamps Entrepreneur” with a starter pack of 10 solar lamps. Now he can rent them every night to his local customers and charge them during the daytime. The only condition is that he will pay back 25% of his income to Ecofinder until the lamps are paid off and that the price for the lamps a night is below the local common price for kerosene lamps.

With the earned money Ecofinder is able to spread the solar lamps project and to buy new lamps for new entrepreneurs. One of my first tasks was to put the repayment’s bookkeeping in order and to assign it to an excel-softcopy. After this office work I could visit and meet all our eight “Solar Lamps Entrepreneurs”. I asked them about their running business, problems, wishes and how much solar lamps they would need more to provide the demand of all customers. The response on the last question was clearly. The market for affordable solar lamps is huge. It’s environmental friendly and you can even earn your own money with the rentals. A perfect project combination of ecological and economic aspects.

But you can imagine, it is’nt everyhing perfect from the very beginning. We have also some problems, more information the next time.

“Take a gap year and save the planet!” This could be the motto of the Kenyan based organisation “Ecofinder”. Founded in 1995 the Kenyan grass roots organisation helps communities around Lake Victoria to lead a more sustainable life. GLOBAL IDEAS has invited one of Ecofinder’s numerous volunteers to write about his experience:

Hello, my name is Nicolas Kawerau from Germany. Currently I live in Kisumu, Kenya where I work as a volunteer with the Kenyan organisation Ecofinder for one year. I am 18 years old and have done my A-Levels this year. I know already what I would like to study: “Renewable Energy Technologies”.

To live and behave sustainable on our earth is a big challenge. You can hear the expression “Sustainability” everywhere. Everyone says it is essential and very important for our future – but the problem is you can hardly see sustainable measures anywhere: We pollute the air, we pollute the soil, we pollute the water with our waste, we destroy the world’s surface.

Everyone can start saving the planet now

It’s fine that a lot of people know already about these issues but most people don’t change their behaviour. They think it wouldn’t have an impact. It’s true that no one alone can change the world. But it’s false to believe that a single environmental friendly contribution would be nothing, every little contribution is important.

I am a volunteer for Ecofinder Kenya because I want to start giving our world community a sustainable contribution towards a greener environment. One of my tasks here in Kenya will be to help that electricity only comes from renewable energy sources. The sun provides enough energy, we don’t have to take non-renewable resources like coal, oil, gas or radioactive stuff from the earth for generating power.
Think about your conribution towards a greener environment and try to start as fast as you can! With Ecofinder I will join in and start projects about the spread of renewabel energy sources.

For more information on how to become an Ecofinder volunteer yourself visit the organisation’s homepage: http://www.ecofinderkenya.org