Rent-to-own solar project; Villages' wake from darkness

By Conan Businge
Arthur Oyako
Annet Nalugwa
Nathan Ssenkomago

SHE sounds confident, informed and hopeful. She heads her three-people family and is very confident of the future. This is Scovia Nabaggala a farmer and local council leader in her village.

For a rural woman, with the synonymous high levels of poverty in rural areas, Nabaggala seems to be living large. She earns about sh25,000 ($10) per day from all her projects and she is confident that her future is bright. She is wielding all her power from the Rent-to-own project; which is a sub-set of a bigger project Kayunga District Farmers Association.

The farmers’ group members are provided with solar-powered lanterns with mobile charging capability. The farmers pay for the equipment through daily subscriptions of sh500 ($0.20) till the payment of sh182,000 ($72.5) is done.

But that is not all. Since various farmers groups also save their earnings, to ably borrow later from the same consolidated fund at 10% interest rate, some of the farmers can pay off the solar-powered lanterns at once at a subsidised rate of about sh120,000 ($48).

The farmers’ project also has a saving scheme, which has helped so many of the rural members spring out of poverty.

Solar-powered lights project’s concept

The ‘Rent-to-own project’ under which the solar-powered lanterns are distributed at a cost to local people, is part of the ‘Small solutions Technology consultants’; which started in April this year in Kayunga district, has about 2,000 members from about seven districts all over the country.

Smallsolutions technology consultants is a Uganda-based social enterprise providing renewable energy and human development solutions at the grass-root level in East Africa.

The project is hinged to the the Uganda National Farmers’ Association project in various districts in the country, according to William Turyamureeba the activation manager for Small solutions technology consultants. The districts include Kayunga, Nebbi, Apac, Ssembabule, Masaka, Rukungiri, and Mbarara.

Uganda National Farmers Federation (UNFFE) is the largest non-governmental farmers' organisation in Uganda. According to the UNFFE, the farmers from all over Uganda founded this organisation in 1992 with the objective to mobilise the farming community and voices under one independent umbrella organisation. It started as Uganda National Farmers Association (UNFA) and changed to a Federation in 2002 to embrace various commodity associations and service providers.

How solar-powered lanterns work

Solar-powered lanterns use the energy from the dun to charge up the batteries. A solar panel is placed in outside, for the strong sun-rays to charge the batteries.

The lantern is 10 times brighter than a kerosene lamp, its has 30 hours of light on one day’s charge, and has a five years battery life.

Apart from the lanterns, the project also distributes solar torches. The torch is also charged using the solar energy, but does not require a panel. Its battery has a one year warranty, but can last up to three years, according to Turyamureeba.

Why care about solar-powered lanterns

Most parts of the country are not connect to the electric power grid. This means the rural people have to depend on the usage of keresone to fuel their lanterns at night. But, this would cost a family an average of two dollars per week to fuel the lanterns, without forgetting that according to the national survey, also 80% of the rural people can hardly afford spending a one dollar per day.

But, according to studies on the SunFunder website, by renting a solar lighting and phone charging device, “all these costs are reduced to a flat rate of $0.20 a day (sh500), and is no longer too expensive to obtain.”

Setbacks of the project

But, according to the local people, there are setbacks with the solar-powered lanterns. A number of them say that they often get lose connections and at times the phone charging system fails after a few months.

“I’m wondering why I had to spend my money on this lantern. A few months down the road, it is already faulty,” a 76-year-old Jane Nalubowa laments.

However, most of the people in the community, are impressed with the quality of the lanterns.