Gewuza Foundation
A convinient, customized and eco friendly solar powered school bag that provides a clean a safe source of light to studenst in ural areas off the grid.
Industry in Uganda consumes up to 600 metric tons of plastic waste a day and only about 51 % of that waste is left un collected and it all ends up in water ways, sewage system and also affects the aquatic life. On the other hand, According to the World Bank, only 1 in 5 households in rural communities have access to the electric power grid. When comparing rural and urban homes, the situation is worse with over 89% of rural households not reached by the grid. Without reliable access to modern power, these homes are left to utilize other more dangerous forms of energy such as kerosene, charcoal and wood burning, whose harmful effects on the environment as well.
At Gewuza foundation, we are empowering communities to respond to the realities of climate change and be able to achieve resilience livelihoods. We are doing this through creating a novel solution to inclusive and equitable quality education among vulnerable children in last mile communities in Uganda. We developed a solar powered school bag made using low cost textile recycled from polythene waste, integrated with 10 watt energy trapping solar panels to support students in rural communities extend their studies after the dark
We are looking forward to covering the African market where by 940 million people in Africa live off the grid, coming to Uganda we shall cover 7,200,000 million people who live of the grid but we are starting with Mpigi district as our target market. And with this, we shall be selling over 1000 school bags to mothers in Mpigi district per month.
We have a team of 4 motivated and passionate team members who have both been raised in communities of the grid, Among us is Nankya Jovia the fundraiser and team leader of the project, Jovia Nankya the production manager, Kavuma John Mary our accounting officer with 4 years’ experience in accounts therefore helping us to track every penny that comes in and out of the project. Kemigisha Tryphine our social media personnel who is marketing our enterprise to the outside market. Together we shall be able to uplift the lives of marginalized groups of people and tackle environmental challenges.
We have carried out customer dicovery in differnt communities around us and we learnt quite alot of these from families living off the grid. One of their biggest pains was high costs of kerosen that is also risky since its is used in open
- Improving learning opportunities and outcomes for learners across their lifetimes, from early childhood on (Learning)
- Pilot: An organization deploying a tested product, service, or business model in at least one community
Using discarded plastic waste as a resource it has been for so long not common especially in local communities. The project is unique in that it uses discarded polythene bags into school bags. On the other hand, our product is inclusive and equitable to quality education among vulnerable children in last mile communities in Uganda. We developed a solar powered school bag made using low cost textile recycled from polythene waste, integrated with 10 watt energy trapping solar panels to extend child’s study hours enabling children to read books during dark hence improving their performances in school. Our solar powered schools bags are cheaper than the existing bags because we use locally available materials to produce them.
We are looking forward to raise
- Purchase 4 sewing machine and 1 fusing machine to help us improve on trhe quality of our school bags.
- Production of bags and marketing our products on different channels and platforms in order to raech a broad number of customers.
- Partnerships with different organisations and companies with coerprate social responsibilities who will support in the distribution of our school bags on a large scale in different rural areas of Uganda.
We developed a convinient, customized and eco friendly solarbag made using low cost textile recycled from polythene waste, integrated with 10 watt energy trapping solar panels to extend child’s study hours enabling children to read books during dark hence enhancing and boosting their education in a rural setting.
- Manufacturing Technology
- Uganda
We are targeting students and pupils living in rural areas off the grid, who move long distances to and from schools. By granting them a customized, convenient and eco-friendly solar powered school bag, it will help them extends the time they have to do homework after dark and thus buy them more time to learn and engage in family activities.
On the other hand, we are looking forward to covering the African market where by 940 million people in Africa live off the grid, coming to Uganda we shall cover 7,200,000 million people who live of the grid but we are starting with Mpigi district as our target market. And with this, we shall be selling over 1000 school bags per month to mothers in Mpigi district per month.
We are currently facing financial challenges to develope our product. We have a new product and we wish to have the rightful machines to perfect our products in order to compete with the current market.
We are currently working with organisations and companies with corprate social responsiilitues who sponsor the production and distribution of the bags in a large scale to different rural areas off the grid in Ugnda.
At Gewuza foundation, we are empowering communities to respond to the realities of climate change and be able to achieve resilience livelihoods. We are doing this through creating a novel solution to inclusive and equitable quality education among vulnerable children in last mile communities in Uganda. We developed a solar powered school bag made using low cost textile recycled from polythene waste, integrated with 10 watt energy trapping solar panels to support students in rural communities extend their studies after the dark. Through our transformation process, we work closely with rural women as our suppliers and they also participate in the transfromation of waste that involves washing, drying and sewing the textile into school bags. when the bags re ready, we sell them to parents and gurdians through different channels like door to door, exhbitions as well as shops and supermarkets. We choose our customer because when we did our customer discovery, we raelized that they are using the most dangerous and most expensive source of light since they cant afford electricity in their homes hence the inrtoduction of our solar powered school bags.
We make money through direct sales from our customers, addition we also make money through partnerships (CSR) and donors.
We make money through carrying out trainings in different communities where we train people to turn waste into different products of inherent value. We also make money through partnerships with different companies and organisations with corprate Social Responsibilities (CSR) who the distribution of our bags on a large scale in different rural areas in Uganda.
Founder