I found an article today about how this non-profit based out of Portland called Green Empowerment helped design a solar power structure and train the community of Candelaria, Nicaragua to maintain it. The panels that the community installed give power to a water pump allowing clean water to flow into the village instead of having the women and children walk for hours three times a day to find it while the men are away working picking coffee. I totally stole these pictures straight from the magazine article because they are so inspiring to me. Using simple transportation methods like the donkey to carry the new solar panels requires no fuel but care for that living creature. The power of the community coming together to solve a problem, start a committee to keep the solution functional and economically feasible is awesome to me. Just like the awesome power provided by the sun and channelled through the solar panels to operate their water pump.
The villagers pay the equivalent of $2 per household per month to maintain their pump. The success of the project has inspired the community to keep making progress by building latrines and learning about proper hygeine now that they have clean water. This is the future, where communities come together for a common cause and create jobs in an environmentally responsible way. Our cities filled with disenchanted intellectuals discussing political philosophy over the coffee the Nicaraguans provide are the past and not only because they will need to work in coffee fields less and less as more and more communities start improving themselves with help from organizations like Green Empowerment. This is the good in the world that I'm talking about focusing on. It just takes a little effort to find because it isn't on the surface that all of us see in our day to day lives. It is little wonder that so many of us aren't happy with our lives and opt to get that small sliver of satisfaction from mocking those around us who seem to be not as cool as we are. I'm not saying we should feel guilty and bad about ourselves. We already do. I'm saying we should be happy that changes like these are taking place and then we can start effecting small change is our larger communities. The theme for the day is that disillusionment is immature and counterproductive. And that solar power is fucking badass. I'm not studying electrical engineering to build bigger and faster cell phones and computers, I'm doing it to take advantage of the education I can get in the United States and help transition to this future that I apparently am not the only one envisioning. Thats really good for me to know.
www.greenempowerment.org
Images copyright 2005 Elsevier Ltd. taken from ReFocus magazine
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