A little background on Barefoot Power Uganda
(Originally posted June 25th, 2008)
It’s been about a month since I arrived in Uganda and I’ve gotten started at work, moved into an apartment and I’m really settling into life in Kampala. Work is coming along well, I’m much more familiar with the project and my role here now which is officially called “Recruitment and Training Manager.”
To give you the gist of it, Barefoot Power is here to establish a Ugandan joint venture. The JV will be setting up, training and supporting a network of local entrepreneurs who will be located in rural communities in order to make the Firefly lamps and solar panels available for purchase, a kind of micro-franchising approach. The Firefly system is smaller and much less expensive than most of the solar products on the market here and the intent is for the solar systems to replace the kerosene people are currently using for lighting.
After 2-3 months, the lamp will pay for itself in saved kerosene expenditure and it’s obviously cleaner, safer and brighter then the lanterns people use now. Beyond the lamps, the JV is aiming to make appropriate technologies available for the population at the “bottom of the pyramid” (the poor who make up the vast majority of the population in most countries and world wide).
We’ve been meeting with various NGOs and other organizations who may be interested in working with us and through them we have plans to take on a few entrepreneurs to start out and take a test run with the training, the entrepreneurs and the product actually in the field. The feedback we’ve been getting on the product has been overwhelmingly positive, so it’s looking promising and hopefully, from our experience here, we will be able to develop model to use in other countries in the future. My work these days has consisted mainly of developing the training materials and resources, networking and establishing relationships with NGOs and other organizations along with other odds and ends that help a business get started.
Our first trainings should be starting shortly and we’re planning to get a big shipment of product in next month so it’s quite an exciting time to be a part of Barefoot Power!