The Good life Short film

Its refreshing to see more people thinking "outside the box" and starting to embrace renewable energy (RE) options. Meaningful development can only occur with access to affordable power.  Access the to reliable power #solar4TheMasses will definitely foster  productivity and improve quality of life across the board.

 

December RE & Entrepreneurship contest winner emerges

Kudos to Rufai Balogun on becoming the latest winner in the Solar Jooce RE & Entrepreneurship youth challenge at the 'Dustbin Estate' in the Ajegunle area of Lagos State.

At the 13th December workshop held at the youth center in Ajegunle. Eight attendees were shown an actual Direct Current (DC) iron and asked to compete to win one in an individual essay contest. The objective was to have them think creatively on how to start a micro business in their neighborhood using solar powered appliances in combination with DC power from solar panels.

A Vimeo video titled 'AC or DC' by Nextek Power (http://vimeo.com/16061080) was shown to illustrate the benefits of DC over AC power.

Six contestants successfully submitted their one page essay, two short days later on 15th December 2014. The youths each showed marked improvements in their understanding of micro businesses by including concepts such as 'Pay back period' in their planning as previously suggested by a judge from Heinrich Böll Foundation (Nigeria) in the September 2014 contest.

The contest judges from Heinrich Böll Foundation (Nigeria) and United Nations Habitat (Kenya) graciously accepted to judge the contest entries and did a phenomenal job grading all entries and providing insightful feedback to the youths. The judges each graded entries on a 20 point scale taking into account factors such as originality, creativity, sustainability and clarity in expressing their business ideas.

Rufai Balogun won by achieving the highest cumulative score of 34 points.  Heinrich Böll Foundation awarded him 19 points out of a possible 20, while United Nations Habitat awarded him

15 points out of 20.

Rufai received his prize from Solar Jooce on Monday, 22nd December 2014 at the youth center in the 'Dustbin Village' in Ajegunle, Lagos.

Excerpts of comments from Heinrich Böll Foundation on Rufai's entry titled 'Easy Ironing' went as follows:

“Easy Ironing” made its name a part of the marketing strategy – beautiful idea. He has done his market survey and proposes to iron a shirt for free if somebody brings a new customer. He knows his operating costs (N 200/week) although he did not consider them for the payback period. He is the only one who thought about using profit for the purchase of the battery so that his operating costs reduce. It’s a very creative proposal and well written."

Dustbin Village youth gaining RE experience and build confidence

Solar Jooce continues to receive valuable feedback from the winners of the first youth RE and Entrepreneurship contest, held in September 2014.

Alternating possession of the prize Solar kit between each winner fostered internal competition and caused each team member to be more creative in generating revenue. Parents also became involved in supervising their children's new enterprise.

The winners' interaction with their customers provided valuable information on what features customers liked the most, and what product features the micro business thought could be improved.

Solar Jooce followed up every two weeks with visits to the dustbin village youth center in Ajegunle to facilitate the hand-over of the solar kit between the winning team members as well as review their written reports on running their micro enterprise.

Overall, the winners are showing confidence and understanding on the basics of solar power and how to start a micro enterprise. Below are excerpts from a report by Faith Eze.

NEXT STEP

Solar Jooce will conduct the last Youth RE & Entrepreneurship workshop for this year on Saturday 13th December 2014 at the LOTS charity Foundation youth center in Ajegunle, Lagos.

The session will focus on the advantages of using DC versus AC current.

Each of the 10 students will be challenged to write a one page essay on how they can utilise a DC (battery-operated) iron in running a micro business.

The prize for the best entry will be a brand new DC iron, designed to work off-grid.

Representatives of the Heinrich Boll Foundation (Nigeria) and the UN Habitat (Kenya) have graciously agreed to judge this round of entries as they did in the first round in September 2014.

May the best young lady or young man win!