Solar Sister: driving change through innovation and growth
December 4, 2024
ENERGIA has partnered with Solar Sister since 2022 to work on universal, equal and equitable access to and control over sustainable energy for all. During the partnership, Solar Sister has created and scaled up Sisterhoods in Nigeria, Tanzania and Kenya. The Sisterhood entrepreneurs deliver clean energy directly to homes in rural African communities. Two years into the project, which will run until 2026, the Solar Sister team are excited to share some of the highlights and learnings.
By Solar Sister
Empowering through apprenticeships
In 2023, we launched the Apprenticeship Program in Kenya, focusing on urban slums. The program gives participants the opportunity to earn an income, develop entrepreneurial skills, and start their own businesses. For three months, participants work as clean energy sales agents, receiving training from Solar Sister and earning commissions on the products they sell. At the end of the three months, these commissions enable them to purchase Solar Sister products to launch their clean energy businesses or to use their new skills and earned commissions to pursue other ventures.
Advancing through learning and digitization
The year 2024 marked a pivotal year in our journey of learning and improvement with the launch of Solar Sister’s Organizational Learning Agenda. This initiative reflects our belief in the power of knowledge to drive innovation, empower our team, and create meaningful change.
A key focus has been to evaluate how digitization programming is increasing digital literacy, self-efficacy, and business outcomes for our entrepreneurs. Over the past year of monitoring and evaluation, we’ve seen how digitization helps women’s businesses grow, increases efficiency, expands market access, and builds confidence using digital tools. This progress underscores the need for continued investment in digital training and tools to help entrepreneurs thrive.
Since 2010, Solar Sister has:
Scaling clean cooking solutions
Solar Sister has achieved remarkable growth in clean cookstove distribution, with the number of clean cookstoves distributed increasing more than tenfold between 2020 and 2024. Several factors drove this significant growth, including the merger with Kenya, which has a strong focus on cookstove distribution and increasing demand for clean cooking solutions in Nigeria and Tanzania. The steady increase in cookstove sales highlights the recognition of clean cooking as a critical solution for women’s economic empowerment and inclusion in this growing market, climate change action, improved health, and energy poverty.
Sister in the Spotlight – Beatres Kachema
When you meet Beatres Kachema, her warm smile immediately makes you feel at home. It’s hard to imagine that she rarely left her house just a few years ago. Since joining Solar Sister Tanzania in 2018, Beatres has become a thriving entrepreneur.
Under the guidance of her Business Development Manager, Victoria Mfinanga, she learned how to start and run a clean energy business. “My life changed completely,” says Beatres. “Now, I’m a familiar face in the community.” Recently, she expanded into a fish-frying business, selling fresh fish and bananas to evening commuters. With Victoria’s training, she evaluated the risks and profits, pricing her products thoughtfully.
Beyond her success, Beatres mentors other women, helping them join Solar Sister and grow as entrepreneurs. Beatres participated in our advanced training, Business Booster, in 2021. In this program, entrepreneurs train in Connected Selling, Credit Benefits and Risks, Reinvesting Capital and Profits, and expanding their market, among other business topics.
Energy poverty in numbers
2.4 billion people worldwide lack access to electricity and clean cooking fuels. Sheila Oparaocha, director of ENERGIA, gave a TED Talk about energy poverty and its health impacts.
