Sirona Cares

Sirona Making Progress with USAID's Funding

In New York there are nine new SunBlazer units being packed for shipment to Haiti.  These units were built by IEEE volunteers and each will supply enough energy to bring light to 83 homes.  The equipment leaves next Wednesday and in early July we will be working with IEEE volunteers and Haitian workers to ready them for deployment to the St. Marc commune of Haiti.  Final shipping details are being worked out and the team will breathe easier once the units leave next week.

Milestone one of our USAID contract entitled "747 Points of Light" involved procurement of a staging facility near Port au Prince, Haiti.  We received the grant last week and on Friday we accomplished this first milestone.  Support for our program has been very high, and partnships are forming that will be the basis of establishing in-country assembly facilities for the long term. 

Like the first milestone, the second for our grant is well underway.  USAID has policies in place to fairly select beneficiaries of their equipment, and Sirona will be working with USAID to create a standardized policy for selecting the sites for these nine units.  This will be accomplished by the end of June so that as we are preparing the units for deployment other members of the Sirona team can be vetting potential Operators and selecting the sites for deployment.

We are very excited to be funded and at work on this project.  Waiting for approval on a grant is hard, but the Sirona team used the time wisely and we are very prepared to hit the ground this summer and light 747 houses in the St. Marc commune. Other projects are in our pipeline, other grants are percolating, and we are all very excited about the future.  The goal is to bring light to one million people in five years, and we will be making a dent int that goal this summer.

 

 

Haiti & Africa: Summer Travel Plans

This summer promises a lot of work, and a lot of travel.  Sirona will deploy nine SunBlazer units and bring light to 747 homes in the St. Marc commune of Haiti in a project funded by USAID.  The equipment is in New York ready to go so we are working out our logistics and focusing on milestones associated with deployment of those units.  We are very excited about this project as we will be using the funding generated by this grant to deploy an additional nine units in Haiti this fall.  The nine SunBlazers we are sending were donated by the IEEE Community Solutions Initiative. As we prepare for the deployment we have have been busy working out design changes and the supply chain for future units that will be built in Haiti. 

In addition to this project we have more to do in Haiti in the southern region near Les Cayes with the UNEP on their Haiti Rengeneration Initiative.  We will be partnering with EarthSpark International to open "Energy Stores" along the grid that will give people living beyond the powerlines affordable options for lighting their homes.  The goal is to open 10 energy stores in a year supplying energy to over 1,000 homes.  The seed funding from this grant will build sustainable business and we look forward to working on this project later this summer.

Finally, we will be traveling to South Africa to attend the IEEE's Power and Energy Society conference entitled Power Africa 2012.  Sirona will be presenting at a CSI workshop alongside this conference geared to NGOs in Africa that could use the SunBlazer technology to light their areas through sustainable business rather than charity.  Please visit those links if you are interested in attending, the conference takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa, July 10-13.

747 Points of Light: USAID/Sirona Grant Approved

 

Customers in St. Etienne, Haiti

Access to electricity is arguably the most critical factor in any equation aimed at shifting communities from abject poverty to self-sustainability.  In rural Haiti electricity is rare, and in the darkness families are locked in grinding poverty.  Without plumbing the people are exposed to disease; without light opportunities to change their lot are few. 

 

It's difficult for most of us to imagine life without electricity and it is easy to forget how critical it is to our way of life.  Electricity releases us from living on the schedule of sunrises and sunsets and allows us to choose how long we will work and play.  We can move about freely at night, and we have access to information and entertainment 24 hours a day.  Like the air we breathe, electricity is so critical to our way of life that we don't even think about it until our access to it is cut.  When we lose power we flail in the dark anxiously awaiting its return. 

Not wishing to jinx agreements in the works my blogging has lapsed, but I am happy to announce that we will be very, very busy this summer working on new programs aimed at bringing not only electricity to homes, but sustainable enterprise to rural Haiti.  The IEEE's Community Solutions Initiative group built and donated nine new SunBlazer units for deployment in Haiti.  In agreement with IEEE/CSI, Sirona capitalized upon this opportunity by partnering with USAID to deploy these units in the St. Marc commune this summer.  USAID paid for these units and with that funding Sirona will build and deploy nine more units in Haiti this fall thereby doubling the donation from IEEE/CSI for the benefit of an additional 747 homes in Haiti. In addition we will be adding 240 more kits to the six units that are currently operating in Haiti.

The USAID grant is aptly titled: 747 Points of Light because 747 homes will get electricity and nine new small business franchises will service these homes.  Because we base everything upon our model for sustainable economic development, this grant funds nine new businesses that sustain themselves and supply affordable energy for the long term.  This USAID grant is one of empowerment, not charity giving the people in 747 homes the power to change their lives, literally.  Length of day will no longer be dictated by sunrise and sunset; cell phones will stay charged for communication and cell phone charging will become an income generating opportunity for the family; radios play music and news; and children can study.  There is much to do, and we look forward to sharing the story here with regular updates.

We wish to thank IEEE/CSI for the incredible partnership we have enjoyed.  The work of countless volunteers is beginning to create a wave of change and it has taken many people many hours to get us all this far.  As to USAID, we thank the American people.  Please follow our work to see the positive effect that development funding can have when applied to sustainable projects.  Through collaboration we are truly pushing back the darkness and the poverty that darkness enfolds.

Collaborating to Bring Light Near Cayes, Haiti

During my last trip to Haiti I visited sites in the south near Les Cayes preparing to work on a project with UNEP (United Nations Energy Program) that will begin this summer. We, Sirona, will partner with EarthSpark International in a program funded by the government of Norway to provide options of affordable light to people living beyond the grid power of the towns. In brief, we will open "Energy Stores" along the Les Cayes grid to bring power to those who have no access to electricity in their homes.  The trip took us from Port au Prince down to Port Salut which is, by the way, a stunning place to stay. 

Through our ever growing network of references we were able to connect with strong community leaders in the Cayes and Cavaillon areas who are both enthusiastic about the programs we work on, and anxious to get started helping us get light into homes. Working with leaders like these allows us to ensure success. Empowering local people to bring light to their community, said simply, works.

Another great help was the local EDH office. EDH is the national utility. We are regularly asked about our relationship with EDH and the answer is that the relationship is a good one. We provide service where EDH cannot, and we are mobile and can easily move our operations as EDH increased its reach.
We compliment one another rather than compete.

Our last trip was very successful.  A trip full of fact finding and the adventure that is traveling through rural Haiti.