Tackle against escape causes
Technology, innovative ideas and concepts along with social commitment for a better world!
Using innovations to
establish sustainable help for self-help structures, create
jobs on the spot and show perspectives for a better future,
thereby reducing causes for flight is
the aim of GREENLIGHT-initiative of Madame-Ilsa-Foundation.
GREENLIGHT-initiative was established in 2015 by Madame-Ilsa-foundation together
with the applied university in Offenburg,
Germany (Prof. Dr. Michael Schmidt, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Bessler) and Ibn Zohr University (Prof.
Ahmed Ihlal) in Agadir, Morocco as a cross-divisional student initiative.
Students of different semesters and study programs as well as postgraduates are
dedicated to achieve a sustainable improvement of the living conditions in
Morocco, especially for the children and adolescents. In the spirit of our
fundamental idea „help for self-help“ the
initiative supports Moroccan people on the one hand by providing them with light and electric power for learning and
working derived from
local solar energy systems and on the other hand by integrating the people
and their ideas, knowledge and labour into the
value creation process in the highest degree possible. Sustainable improvements on the ground are achieved through knowledge transfer and
local value creation, which offer the people positive development opportunities in their home area. In the long
run the focus of the project will be extended to other countries with
corresponding needs.
Help for self-help“ was the philosophy of life of Katharina Pawlowna, Queen of Württemberg when she founded the social
welfare program 200 years ago. Her strict principle consisted of helping
people in need to help themselves instead of giving them handouts. Misery
was only to be overcome by work. The education to work, given to the children
of the poor, also intended to serve this principle.
How fitting in the current times!
Education is a human right –
education enables people to improve their social, economic, cultural and
political situation. Every child and every adolescent has the right to a school
and work education and every man and woman should be able to satisfy his or her
basic learning needs. Education is the essential and non-substitutable
condition for a development, that is viable for the future and that is the
reason why we make it the point of emphasis of our work. Currently we focus the education
activities primarily at Association AHLI – a house for homeless children in
Taroudant with 218 children being cared for. All activities within and
corresponding to AHLI are realized in a way that we can reuse the concepts and
experiences as references in and for many further projects in Association
TAOUJA, DAR ATALIBA or Oum el BANINE.
Referring
to the students of the involved universities
the initiative aims at enabling them to show proactive personal initiative and
take on responsibility, encouraging solution-orientated, systematic thinking
(e.g. in the form of a project paper or a bachelor/master thesis) as well as
experiencing interdisciplinary teamwork (Engineering, IT, Business Economics,
Marketing,..). Another benefit is the international and intercultural
experience caused by the collaboration of the universities in Germany and
Morocco.
The
initiative’s projects technical focus lies in the area of sustainable creation of electricity and warmth (especially
through photovoltaics and solar heat) and increase of energy efficiency (especially
through economic LED-lamps and energy management on the base of simple
automation concepts).
There is no possibility for development without
energy.
We are confronted with huge global challenges:
- In order to reduce poverty, the energy supply in the developing and emerging countries needs to be established and expanded. Energy has to be affordable, produced sustainably and used efficiently.
- At the same time, climate change must be stopped and the environmental impact needs to be reduced
- Furthermore, the total global energy consumption needs to decrease and renewable energy sources have to be used more intensively than they already are.
- The necessary preconditions consist in education and understanding of sustainability and conservation of resources.
,Morocco
decrees itself sun‘
or ‚We need hundreds of Ouarzazates‘
are examples of headlines published in the context of the world climate conference, which took place in Marrakesh in November
2016. The Maghreb countries offer perfect conditions – while maintaining
the paradox that regenerative energies only constitute an insignificant part in
the Moroccan energy supply while having to import 95% of the required amount of
energy[1]
which increases at an annual growth rate of 7%. ‚This is going to change‘ promised the King and decreed that until the
year 2030 more than half of the electrical energy in Morocco is to be produced
through wind, water or solar power.
The
statement ‚We need hundreds of Ouarzazates‘demonstrates the particular
challenges for Morocco. It will by far not be sufficient to build solar mega
power plants. At the moment, Morocco relies heavily on large-scale projects and
buildings to achieve the energy transition[2].
While the King is open-minded towards solar panels being installed in private
households e.g. on the roofs of private homes, there is no concept how this
could be implemented.
Therefore, it is especially important to adapt the solutions to the requirements,
conditions and capabilities of the local users and partners in order to
enable the largest possible share of the production, sales and maintenance activities
to be performed locally.
Poverty
is one of the biggest challenges of the present. Its eradication, in
the meaning of sustainable development and development cooperation, must be an overarching goal in our politically and economically interwoven
world
A prerequisite for sustainable economic growth
is the availability of a sufficient amount of jobs and the decency of
the working conditions of these jobs. Therefore, we dedicate ourselves to support
the increase of employment e.g. by educating the adolescents in AHLI to enable
them to, among other things, produce, sell and maintain self-efficient
LED-lamps in Morocco so that the value creation process takes place on the
ground and future-proof jobs are created.
Currently we focus our activities on the „House for Homeless Children“ near
Taroudant. About 220 children and adolescents live in this facility operated by
Association AHLI (www.ahli.ma). These kids, which are growing up without
parents, are given a home and the possibility for a work education. In this
facility energy-saving LED-lamps are produced using electronical components
from Germany but the development and manufacturing of the cases and the
assembly takes place locally in Morocco organized and accompanied by
Green:Light initiative. In the first step the lamps are used in the house for homeless
children itself to save electricity costs to be able to redirect the resources
to pedagogical work.
The
first lamps were built and the involved adolescents and their teachers are very
proud of their table, ceiling and wall lamps, designed and manufactured in
Morocco.
To reach
the goal of executing all value creation steps in Morocco there is a need for
extended school and work education and training measures. Therefore, necessary
education concepts for the next steps are created in a targeted manner in
cooperation with the postgraduates of Professor Ihlal, Ibn Zohr University,
within the framework of practical semesters and voluntary work. Computer-based
learning using modern possibilities of online classes are tested. Language
barriers constitute a special challenge that needs to be taken into account.
The effectiveness and sustainability of this
“help for self-help” at Association AHLI can be demonstrated easily by the
example of the energy cost savings. Until now the monthly costs for electrical
energy were about 400€. As soon as we finish the replacement with the new, more
economical LED lamps, the estimated
savings are 250€ per month. This amount of money enables us to e.g. employ an additional teacher for the
numerous group of children, as the average
wage in Morocco is at about 3000$ per year.
An
ambitious pilot project was implemented
within the framework of a student field
trip in November 2016. A horse ranch, which provides three young families
with a stable income, was equipped with an energy system. This energy system is
built of solar modules and batteries and produces electric power for a water
pump, cooling units and efficient LED-lamps. The development of the system took
place by students of the applied
university Offenburg and it was tested at INES in Offenburg.
The energy
system is now operated by the families who own the ranch, Moroccan students of
the Ibn Zohr University as well as our management team which is comprised of
Horst Grulke and Ibrahim Ait-Ouamoum. Horst spends his life a retiree in
Morocco and Ibrahim supports him with advice and hands-on help as well as
translation services as they are supporting various facilities in Morocco.
Wide-ranging financial and operative support from the company General
Electric-GE as well as the company Müller – Logistics Germany GmbH and many
other private donations were essential contributions without which it would have
been impossible to realize the project.
An
additional project, which is currently worked on, targets the realization of „pico- solar systems“: The lamps
produced at the house for homeless children shall be integrated into pico-
solar systems, which are developed by students of Green:Light initiative. The
systems are built to enable access to affordable electrical light for the rural
population.
This
matter poses additional tasks to be
considered such as e.g. ‚How do we achieve
sustainability in cooking and baking?‘ The need to use inexpensive electric
power e.g. for cooking increases in the Maghreb region. The continuing
dependence on firewood, charcoal or gas from gas bottles is getting less
sustainable – a development independent from the efficiency in harvesting the biomass
– if at all available-, the efficiency of gas production respectively highly
subsidised import of gas or the efficiency of energy usage.
According
to ISES more than 90% of the households
in the Sub-Saharan region depend partly or fully on wood, coal or gas to cover
their daily energy needs. However, the environmental pollution of wood,
coal and gas is very high; ISES estimates that worldwide there are at least 3
billion people using these resources and about 4 million people dying due to
consequences of house-internal air pollution caused by this form of cooking and
heating. The energy demand of cooking per person and year is 1 GJ as estimated
by ISES.
The
alternatives shown in this working paper contribute to an improvement of living
standards through:
§ Reduction of air pollution in
interior spaces due to replacing kerosene lamps
§ Provision of light to enable
reading, professional training and working at dawn and night
§ Provision of access to information
and communication channels (radio, television, charge phone battery)
Not least
within the project „Sustainable warmth
for schools in the Atlas Mountains“ students develop economical solar
thermal heating solutions for schools in the mountain areas, where there are
sub-zero temperatures during wintertime. Heaters are either non-existent or
exist in the form of wood stoves of the simplest build without a smoke vent,
which are of disadvantage due to the scarcity of wood and their impact on the
children’s health.
This
special challenge confronted us during visits of different schools in the Atlas
Mountains. The temperatures in this region are often around or below freezing
point but none of the schools could offer a reasonable possibility to heat the
classrooms. In consequence, the classes are frequently held outside in the open
space using the warmth of the sun. Inside of the class rooms there are, if
anything at all, only small wood ovens, which are operated using wood collected
by the children (there are only very few trees in these regions) or expensive
wood briquettes which means that there is an open fire burning in the classrooms.
As the ovens mostly do not dispose over a smoke vent, the children have to
attend to the lessons and follow the class material in a slightly warmer but
very polluted air. Globally the death rate due to house-internal air pollution
amounts to a number of 4.3 million people (source: ISES).
The quintessence:
The sustainable and efficient provision and use of energy for the people
situated at the bottom of the development pyramid is one of the biggest
challenges of the 21st century. New
ideas and concepts, new technologies, new business models as well as new financing
models are required!
Dr.-Ing. Karl-Heinz Sternemann, Bühlertal, 22.02.2017
Further information:
Madame-Ilsa foundation (non-profit UG) is accredited as charitable by the tax office Baden-Baden and certified
by ‚Stifter-helfen‘ www.Stifter-helfen.de.
Donation account:
Sparkasse
Bühl | IBAN DE 77 6625 1434 1000 2918 54 | BIC SOLADES1BHL
Kommentare
Kommentar veröffentlichen