Inspiring Friday

18 May 2012

I have a lot of heroes here, but Sanga Moses (TED Fellow, spoke in Long Beach in March) with whom I spent the first half of Friday, may take the cake so far. Sanga Moses is my age and is making a HUGE impact in Uganda, so much so that TED Talks flew him in to speak about it.

I could type pages and pages about my morning with Sanga. He started Eco-Fuel Africa. http://ecofuelafrica.com/  One day, when he came home to his village from college, he found his sister carrying a pile of sticks on her head (she walked 10 Kilometers to get them) They needed wood to cook food. He was frustrated that she and many African children could not go to school because their families needed their help with this necessary chore.

Eco-Fuel is preparing to give kilns to thousands of farmers who take agricultural waste (branches, corn husks, etc..) and char the waste. The farmers use the larger chunks to fertilize their gardens. Eco Fuel buys the remaining powder particles from the farmers and hires local boys on bicycles to collect and deliver it to the place where charcoal briquets are made.

They mix the charcoal powder with water and sticky substance and pour it in a machine that compacts it all together to make briquets. They then dry the briquets and sell them. More than 95% of Ugandan's buy charcoal for their everyday cooking. Sanga's "green charcoal" will cost 20% less than normal charcoal and will help alleviate the huge deforestation problems that Uganda is facing since it will take away the demand for lumber (People illegally chop wood and use large logs to make charcoal to sell for cooking)


In addition, he donates profits (for tax deduction purposes) to a nonprofit that he formed whose purpose is to plant trees. This keeps the corrupt political leaders from using his tax money to line their pockets. His venture is already extremely successful. It is remarkable how many people's lives Sanga is impacting/helping. He really driven by desire to help people and could care less about the money. He lives in a communal house with a pit latrine like the one we have. I am helping him to write a grant proposal to try and get funding to make the charcoal making machine more efficient. I really hope this gets huge.  Who says one man cannot affect millions. I was telling him how big of a deal he is and he dismissed it saying that he didn't even ever plan on going to college and feels like it is a miracle that he did and that he is where he is now. I felt like I could relate a lot to him.

 This is a pile of the charred agricultural waste

 These ladies are mixing the powder with water and sticky stuff and putting it into this machine (which uses a car jack to compress the charcoal briquets) If any of you out there have engineering experience and want to help with ideas, and technical writing (he is having a hard time explaining in his proposals how it works to Chinese engineering companies whom he wants to make more efficient versions) let me know.....

 Rebecca and I examining some briquets on the drying rack.

 Guitar Lessons: Rockin With The Neighborhood Kids

For those about to rock, we salute you...

Friday afternoon, Stewart and I went to Eric's house-- (He's our neighborhood buddy who helps us out with a lot of things--shown below with the guitar) He and his friend Isaac want to learn how to play guitar. We taught him a lesson and then he asked if we would play. Stewart and I played guitars and sang while Isaac and Eric played percussion. It was probably the first time most of the neighborhood have seen a guitar and it was definitely the first time any of them have heard songs from Bob Dylan, The Eagles, CCR, Led Zeppelin, Audioslave, and the Doobie Bothers. By the end of our little jam session, quite a few neighborhood kids had gathered. Introducing Ugandans to rock music wasn't exactly one of the goals we had for this summer, but it was a fun afternoon. And for the record, they really dig the Doobie Brothers.

 Our friend Eric, pictured with the camera, posing for the camera along with a few of our neighborhood fans

"Down on the corner, out in the street, Willie and the poor boys are playin, bring a nickel- tap your feet"