SOLAR COOKER DESIGN TRAINING GUIDE

Background Information

Although the poverty of Africa is generally the image portrayed by the media the continent has tremendous untapped potential wealth in natural resources (its people, minerals and energy resources). Much of the development of these resources to date has been to benefit societies outside of Africa. The lack of socio-economic progress has largely been due to the exportation of resources rather than the internal industrial technical development within countries. Wide scale, technical skills and know how to the benefit of the local economies and communities has yet to be developed and is just becoming the focus of the political governments. Countless opportunities exist to assist in the transformation, and to provide opportunities for trade, investment, and business opportunities for African Americans.

The International Committee of the Northern California Council of Black professional Engineers (NCCBPE) are currently developing mechanisms for African American engineers to become directly involved in establishing technical links with Africa. They are working with the Constituency for Africa in Washington, DC, and technology organizations in Africa such as the African Regional Technology Center (ARCT) in Dakar, Senegal and the Research and Development Forum for Science-led Development in Africa, RANDFORUM to accomplish this goal.

One of the projects involves the use of solar energy to improve the quality or rural life in Africa. Many of the life threatening problems of Africa are attributed to unsafe drinking water conditions, famine, environmental problems due to the Greenhouse Effect and deforestation. The quality of life for many people in Africa are substandard partially due to the lack of opportunity to earn income, unawareness of simple ways to improve living conditions, and due to the lack of municipal services.

Solar energy can be used to help address these problems which limit the quality of life of Africans living in remote areas.

The spread of diseases can be controlled by using solar energy to heat water to improve sanitary conditions. Medical services in remote locations can be improved by providing doctors with ways to sterilize their instrumentation in the field through the use of solar heat. Deforestation which leads to the Greenhouse Effect can be reduced by supplementing food preparation with wood with solar cooking. Solar cooking can also alleviate the drudgery of searching for wood which is becoming very scare, and provide more time to attend to other household duties.

Solar Energy will be used to promote sustainable development among rural villages. The intent is to provide villagers with economic opportunities. Representatives from NCCBPE's International Committee will work with rural villages to popularize solar applications to solve problems impacting the qualify of their lives. They will educate villagers about the usefulness of solar energy, and train them to create new designs of solar cookers to adapt their use to local needs and conditions. Villagers will be taught how to produce, market and distribute the cookers within their own and neighboring villages, as well as other countries.