Dear Family and Friends,
This summer I plan to travel to remote parts of Tanzania to help design and install solar energy systems on schools and medical clinics. This trip is the by-product of a multidisciplinary collaboration between the Non-Profit organization Solar Hope and my current school, Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT). Each summer a group of 10-15 student volunteers spend a month in Tanzania, traveling from remote village to remote village installing renewable energy systems that will power both schools and hospitals. Also, each student is assigned a project site that they are designated the lead engineer for and I have been assigned to a hospital in the town of Mlowa.
The nearly 8,000 residents of Mlowa are without electricity and any reliable forms of transportation, hindering their medicinal capabilities and access to clean water. A solar electricity system will radically transform their quality of life. For example, access to electricity will allow them to operate a vaccine refrigerator and a microscope for virus identification, pump their own potable water (instead of traveling miles by foot to the nearest lake), and charge their electronic equipment (cell phones and laptops are carried by foot on a weekly basis to towns miles away). Charging of electronic equipment may seem trivial in the scheme of things; however, cell phones and laptops are vital to the community’s education system and are their only resource for medicinal education and the outside world.
There are many obstacles that coincide with a trip of this magnitude and the most obvious is financing. Each volunteer is responsible for raising a base of $3,500 to purchase equipment for their project site and to fund any other costs associated with getting the supplies there and getting the systems installed. Furthermore, I am still in the process of fundraising and I am hoping that I can gain some support for this great cause through my blog. As previously stated, the site that I will be the lead engineer is the hospital in the isolated village of Mlowa. The total cost of the solar system needed to power the hospital is $3,500 and the installation will not be possible if I cannot raise these funds.
I would never commit to something of this scale unless I felt it was meaningful and important. Hopefully you share that sentiment and I will keep the blog fresh with updates for any of you that are interested in following the project.
I sincerely thank you for your support.
Matthew "Foo" Smith
This summer I plan to travel to remote parts of Tanzania to help design and install solar energy systems on schools and medical clinics. This trip is the by-product of a multidisciplinary collaboration between the Non-Profit organization Solar Hope and my current school, Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT). Each summer a group of 10-15 student volunteers spend a month in Tanzania, traveling from remote village to remote village installing renewable energy systems that will power both schools and hospitals. Also, each student is assigned a project site that they are designated the lead engineer for and I have been assigned to a hospital in the town of Mlowa.
The nearly 8,000 residents of Mlowa are without electricity and any reliable forms of transportation, hindering their medicinal capabilities and access to clean water. A solar electricity system will radically transform their quality of life. For example, access to electricity will allow them to operate a vaccine refrigerator and a microscope for virus identification, pump their own potable water (instead of traveling miles by foot to the nearest lake), and charge their electronic equipment (cell phones and laptops are carried by foot on a weekly basis to towns miles away). Charging of electronic equipment may seem trivial in the scheme of things; however, cell phones and laptops are vital to the community’s education system and are their only resource for medicinal education and the outside world.
There are many obstacles that coincide with a trip of this magnitude and the most obvious is financing. Each volunteer is responsible for raising a base of $3,500 to purchase equipment for their project site and to fund any other costs associated with getting the supplies there and getting the systems installed. Furthermore, I am still in the process of fundraising and I am hoping that I can gain some support for this great cause through my blog. As previously stated, the site that I will be the lead engineer is the hospital in the isolated village of Mlowa. The total cost of the solar system needed to power the hospital is $3,500 and the installation will not be possible if I cannot raise these funds.
I would never commit to something of this scale unless I felt it was meaningful and important. Hopefully you share that sentiment and I will keep the blog fresh with updates for any of you that are interested in following the project.
I sincerely thank you for your support.
Matthew "Foo" Smith
