Impact
Boosting education
In 2020, Bright Senam Mensah attended a Dream Renewables training course focussing on the opportunities provided by solar power. He left inspired by the possibilities, and later travelled with fellow trainees to local schools in the region to share his knowledge. One of these visits was to Bomigo Basic School that had no electricity and therefore no computers despite having a skilled IT teacher.
Having identified the need, Bright went back to the Dream Renewables team to see what might be possible to help the school move forward. Our team worked hard with him to provide the project mentoring support, the technical skills and the all-important funds. He had the necessary local knowledge, relationships and enthusiasm to make it happen. Two years later, Bright successfully opened the Bomigo IT lab alongside Dream Renewables volunteers, and members of the school and local community.
Improving livelihoods
We offer internship opportunities which provide our students from poor underserved backgrounds with a route out of poverty. We couldn’t keep up with demand in 2021 so we are looking for more partners to provide internships for our students. 15 participants applied for internships with our partners in 2021 and 8 went on to complete them.
Students like Eugune, who completed internships in 2019 and 2020, often go on to take full time roles with their company, roles in which they would otherwise have been unlikely to be accepted.
We also encourage our students and volunteers to implement sustainable projects in their communities through charitable projects or small businesses. Such projects provide real-world work experience and also lead to stable and sustainable income for our beneficiaries.
Vondi Seth, pictured left, is currently completing an internship with Tino Solutions, a leading engineering company in the capital Accra.
"How will I use the experience brought from this programme? firstly I will educate the people in my comunity about the conservation of energy and climate change, and lastly, I would like to pursue a career in renewable energy."
Euguene, Dream Renewables participant, who went on to get an internship and perminant employmentwith Nocheski Solar.
Empowering Communities
During our training, we complete small projects in the surrounding areas to benefit local communities. These are a fantastic experience for our students, who learn how to deliver small projects and gain real-world practical experience. These projects also provide the community with invaluable power. For example, in 2021 we installed a solar power system for a small fridge and light at a local health clinic and a small solar power system for an off-grid coastal community, which is used for charging phones and other small appliances.
We also support our trainees to deliver bigger projects, such as the solar powered IT lab for Bomigo Basic School, a community-owned solar irrigation system to be shared with a group of farmers in the South Volta Region and a small clean cooking advocacy and manufacturing group, which plan to increase the use of sustainable cooking technology across the South Volta region.
These large projects take more time to complete as they require significant amounts of research, stakeholder engagement and further training for those involved. We are just about to complete our first project, the IT lab for Bomigo, after over 2 years of hard work from the team involved. We are so proud of the team.
"After joining the course for one month, it has enlightened me to the world of energy, Upon completion, I decided to form a team to go around the community to share what we learnt, and solve problems in the community.
We went to Bomigo Basic school to teach them what we learnt, and we saw they didn't have any electricity there, so (with help from Dream Big Ghana Foundation) we designed and funded a solar power system for the school."
Bright Mensah
Passing on knowledge
(The Students become the teachers)
Just one month after the completion of our first programme, a group of students started passing on their knowledge. On October 16th 2019, the students taught a lesson about renewable energy at a local school, coordinated under their own initiative. During this time, they carried out an energy assessment of the school, aiming to design a renewable energy system to supply the school with much-needed electricity. Tthis resulted in Dream Renewables working closely with our trainees to deliver a solar powered IT lab for Bomigo school.
Following the success of this student led initiative, we have since made this a key part of all our training programmes, where all trainees deliver a lesson or workshop about sustainable technology to people in their community. As of December 2021, over 1000 people have attended these sessions.
"I walked out of class thinking I need to go home and look at my energy bill, and take the things ive learnt today and apply it there and to my family"
A visitor of the course
Keeping Things Local
One of our students who excelled in the 2019 programme. He was contracted by Meet Me There Eco Lodge to conduct an energy assessment of the entire complex, which includes a library, community learning centre, bar, kitchen and guest house. This energy assessment was passed on to a local renewable energy company who have designed and installed a solar power system, at the site, alongside a group of our volunteers and trainees.
An anemometer was installed at the learning centre as part of the programme. Data from this anemometer can now be used to assess the potential for a small wind turbine, which could provide electricity for Meet Me There Lodge during cloudy days of the year.
We hope to keep Dream Renewables participants involved in these projects as they develop.