Thursday, July 23, 2009

The light bulb overhead ... more than an idea

People!

We don't like money here in Ghana ... you know that? We think we do ... but we don't really.
The things that will give us the bales of money people dream about are usually the dirtiest and sweatiest ... but in terms of pay-off ... the quickest.

I have a lot of projects to tackle:

Approach the banks and find out how many of them will give SOLARloans ... yep! They give car loans ... why not??
Its the same thing ... the people will be vetted to ensure that they can pay the banks back, but instead of the banks ALWAYS chasing people to COME for CAR LOANS, this time, they will chase them to come for loans to change to solar. There are companies in Ghana who are experts in PV solar fittings ... they could also give discounts to people who really need to go solar ...

Why are our major hospitals not being equipped to gradually go solar?

Secondly, use the plastic waste around to manufacture platic tiles, amongst a myriad of other possibilities. Thing with plastic is smelting will produce toxic fumes, and a gooey mess ... so for these local people, they have to make it soft and malleable, not melt, and tamp it into moulds. Moulds to produce plastic tiles. All they need is human resource to teach them how to collect the plastic waste, coordinate and categorize into colour and texture, prepare them for warming; teach them how to make the moulds and tamps, etc.

In the Phillipines and in Cameroon, 2 companies are already making elegant, high-quality, durable, and CHEAPER tiles out of plastic, styrofoam. Just google something along the lines of "plastic tiles in Cameroon" and you'll see how beautiful they are!

Ghana! Y'er late!! But we dont care about that, do we?

I don't know why government, business-people, investors, and civil society organisations are not investing their energy into initiatives that show care, advancement, and change on the ground, ie ... in the lives of the common people. We here of scattered cases now and then ... and even then ... we do not get to follow progress and see if there really was a transformation ... or how long the initiative lasts ... nobody is sure of anything.

Individuals have gotten sick and fed up of this attitude and once in a while someone gets up and makes their own personal fight for a particular cause ... for eg. the lady Umul Hatia (hope i spelt her name right) who rode a bicycle from Accra to the North and RECORDED EVERYTHING ON CAMERA, and went on radio, so that she could raise funds and support to build a school block for children in a particular village in the North ... commendable.

If i ever do meet her, I will ask her if any governmental arm, civil society organisation, or NGO, etc helped her in this ambition, and to what extent. I really will.

And I am still appealing to everyone out there to help us out with resources and any little funds they can ...

I will be going to the banks and solar companies next week ... and I will share everything that happens on this journey with you! It should be exciting!! I just hope they dont string me along too much ... it simple gives me time to write more blog stories ...

Please e-mail us at goldaaddo@gmail.com if you can help us out with any knowledge, expertise, donations ... etc.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Golda,
    If you talk abt solar, do you mean Photo voltaïsche Electric or heating water?

    If you talk abt energie spilling, how abt airconditioners. I expirienced in Accra in offices especialy where Ghanians are working, it seems they love it to work in a fridge. Outside 32 celsdegree inside 20 celsdegree or less, while in my opinion 25 is a very comfortable temp. If all airco's in Accra would be adjust on 25 it would be an enormous energie saving.
    Aqua

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