Week 11: Providing a Prototype for Sustainable Electricity in Cape Town Townships

Last week before class, I know that the Egoli Electricity project group was feeling pretty overwhelmed about the daunting task of providing electricity to the 3/4 of the residents in the township lacking electricity as seven university students with no background in engineering, little funding and even less time.

Well, I'm happy (and relieved!) to announce that we were just confused about our goal for the project. After speaking with Professor Gilbert last week during class, we realized that we weren't expected to magically solve the electricity issue in the township, but rather propose an alternative energy source for residents that could be developed in the future. From Dr. Gilbert's recent visit to Cape Town, we have some context: Right now, there's only one woman selling electrical batteries to a small sector of the township (her customer base is only 1/4 of residents) and there's concerns about her making all the profit.

We'll do research, experiment with a model on a small scale (aka, bring one energy-harnessing soccer ball, etc.) and see what seems to be most successful. At the end, I hope we can produce a comprehensive report that we can then suggest to a program like UT-Austin's Projects for Underserved Communities, a longer-term service learning initiative that uses the practical skills of engineering and social work students.

Here's a comprehensive Guardian article that talks about the legacy of apartheid on the living conditions of South Africa's black township residents, with a particular focus on Khayelitsha*, Cape Town's second largest township. Although this article isn't specifically about the township we'll be working with, it provides the big picture context of the fact that the city's township residents feel like they've been forgotten 20 years after the apartheid system ended as expectations for the potential of the Reconstruction and Development Programme have fallen incredibly short.

* Some hard facts about housing in Khayletisha.

Week 10: Bringing Light with Egoli Electricity

Frustrated Egoli residents marched to the site contractor's house on April 9, 2015 to demand that Buffalo City Metro send electricians to install their old meter boxes. Photo: Alan Eason. 

Electricity is something that most people, myself included, take for granted on a daily basis. Never mind charging electronics; let's talk about light. You get home and you flip on your light switch. It's so routine that you wouldn't think of the action as luxurious or extraordinary. But your perspective changes when you realize there are people in the world who don't have access to this basic utility. 

After looking over the service projects - each meaningful in their own way - I felt particularly drawn to working with Egoli Electricity because it's a way in which I can attempt to make a small but tangible difference in one South African township. 

Currently, Egoli Electricity - a small township-run business - provides electrical batteries to about one-fourth of the community. And by small, we're talking one woman. 

The idea isn't that seven students are going to go in and light up this entire township just by visiting a couple of hours each week for a month. The purpose of a service learning project isn't to impose change on our agenda, but to work with members in the community to promote sustainable social entrepreneurship. 

There's a lot of innovation when it comes to providing light in developing nations, so our project group is still thinking about what would be the best alternative to electrical batteries. So far, we've thought of seeing what residents in Egoli think of these ideas: 

• Liter of Light, a simple and eco-friendly way of providing a light source. The only materials needed would be a transparent 1.5 - 2 L plastic bottle, filled with water and a little bleach, fitted through the roof of a house. Properly installed bottles can last up the five years. 
• Soccket, a soccer ball that acts as a portable energy source (30 minutes of play powers a simple LED light for 3 hours).

This article published a mere week ago explains how public health ties into this project: many residents without electricity have resorted to using paraffin stoves for light, which fill houses with fumes that cause respiratory issues such as asthma. 

“They gave us beautiful new homes with white walls but now those walls are black from paraffin smoke.” - Michelle Classen

The wider context of the problem is that these houses were provided to the township residents through the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), a policy framework intended to address socioeconomic issues post-apartheid. 

A story in the Daily Dispatch last year said that a national office grant would fund electricity for the new RDP houses, but the residents remain in dark limbo a year later.

In an ideal world, the solution would be for the government to provide the funds for long-lasting electricity. But for now, local entrepreneurship is taking matters into their own hands.

Week 9: The Ultimate Top Ten List

The idea of crowd-sourcing a top ten list of resources for us to have before our departure to South Africa is brilliant. No single movie or article is going to give us enough context on the nation's past, present and future, but aggregating a spectrum of things to look into is a step in the right direction.

I'm familiar with most of what's on the list, but "'Winnie' fails to capture the essence of Mrs. Mandela" and "Cape Town: Gangs, Race and Poverty 20 years after Apartheid" are new to me. That goes to show there's always something to be learned. I encourage everyone to use Twitter to keep up with South African news! I know Twitter has a bad reputation for being a soapbox social platform (aren't they all?) where people rant about stuff that no one cares about, but the news aspect of it is All UT-Austin journalists are required (or strongly recommended) to create a public Twitter account at one point during our four years here and use it as a professional platform. Follow me @LarisaManescu, y'all! Promise that I share interesting content, and it'll probably become more and more related to South Africa as our trip nears. 

Now that we're well-read, I'm ready to land in Capetown and live it.