Enterprise Brief: Lighting Up Hope and Communities

Lighting up Hope and Communities has won one of five 2008 SEED Awards for its work to become a model for the creation of a financially self-sustaining business selling renewable energy products.

Mujeres Solares de Totogalpa is a motivated group of women who are determined to improve the quality of life for themselves and their families in rural North West Nicaragua. Working in partnership with a university research centre, an NGO and experts on solar technology, they are aiming to set up a co-operative enterprise, Lighting Up Hope and Communities, producing photovoltaic panels from recycled solar cells, solar cookers and dryers, and solar cooked/ dried food products and medicinal plants. These products will be made at and sold from a new Solar Center in the community.