This association equips indigenous villages with solar kits

Brut America

Traveling to remote villages to give residents access to electricity is Kwala Faya's mission in the Amazon region. Here is how this nonprofit helps them master these systems based on renewable energy.

Transcript

00:00We go to the isolated villages of Guyane, where we mainly intervene on the Haut-Maroni

00:14and on the Haut-Yapoc, Amerindian villages, sometimes several hours from Pirogue.

00:19So from this isolation, they do not have access to electricity, or sometimes even to drinking

00:25water, and to all services that each French person can have.

00:28When we take villages, for example, on the Haut-Yapoc, just to go to the bank,

00:33you need two days from Pirogue.

00:34Today, it is a demand from the inhabitants to have electricity, because the villages

00:40have been sedentary for several years, they have schools, they have health centers.

00:46Already, these services need access to electricity, access to the Internet,

00:50access to the phone, and the inhabitants too.

00:52It allows them to have access to all the minimum services, such as having light at home

00:57or recharging their phone, and a fridge to be able to preserve food on the sanitary level.

01:02And then, it allows them to access all the services that a French person is supposed

01:08to have at hand, and that today, they do not have.

01:27We go to meet the inhabitants, to see if there are any who are interested in following

01:30our training, and then we do training in action, so we are going to train them,

01:35that is, we are going to teach a group of young people, we are going to teach them the theory quickly,

01:39and we are going to move very quickly on the practice, so that they do with us the self-construction

01:43and the installation of the solar kit, and that behind, they are able themselves to do

01:49the maintenance, to avoid being dependent on companies and technicians who can be

01:53several hours from Pirogue and from Avion.

01:55Is the cable over there?

01:59First sign!

02:03We have four main objectives through the association.

02:06It is to allow the improvement of living conditions for the inhabitants,

02:10the autonomy of the inhabitants while respecting the traditional cultures,

02:13the enhancement of renewable energies and the protection of the environment,

02:16and finally, the creation of activities in territories that are very often affected

02:20by unemployment and lack of training.

02:25What are the benefits of solar power?

02:29Solar power avoids the use of electrogen groups that consume gasoline,

02:34gasoline that is all the more expensive on the Marronnier and Iapoc rivers due to the isolation.

02:40On the ecological level, we gain by using solar power, on the economic level too.

02:44It avoids noise pollution, it avoids a lot of costs on a daily basis for the inhabitants,

02:50and then it allows you to have electricity all the time.

02:52For an electrogen group, it would be necessary to run 24 hours a day to have electricity

02:56and a freezer that runs permanently.

02:58For solar power, we have enough sun in Guyana for it to work even in the rainy season.

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