from the press

In 2007, residents of Ajia sub-county, Mvura County in Arua initiated a project to power their health centre III using solar energy, which is comparatively cheaper than electricity. The majority of the population of 23, 000 people, most of whom are women and children, according the Ajia Sub-county LC III chairperson, Mr Santore Alekua, could not afford paying for electricity connection from the West Nile Rural Electrification Company (WENRCO).
Previously, due to lack of power, the Ajia health centre stored its vaccines at the Arua Government hospital and Kuluva Missionary hospital. But this often delayed the immunisation exercises in Ajia Sub-county because the health personnel had to wait for the transportation of the vaccines from the two hospitals.
Then, there came the idea of the use of solar energy, as an alternative source to enhancing service delivery to the community members. Although, the area is a tobacco growing zone, the community members faced problems in raising money to buy a solar panel to power the health centre, which was a blessing to them in many ways. However, necessity pushed them to raise Ush2.5 million last year, which money they used to purchase a solar panel, and a deep freezer to store vaccines.
With such sacrifice on their part, the solar project has now begun to pay off, especially in terms of enhanced health service delivery. Eighty percent of the children under the age of five (approximately 4000 in number) were recently immunised. The immunisation level improved from less than 60% of their targeted number of children under the age of five in the previous years to more than 70% of the children on a weekly basis.
“Previously, we could not carry out immunisation because we had no fridge to store vaccines,” said Santore Alekua, the LCIII chairperson of Ajia Sub-county in Arua district. “But now, our children have been immunised because of solar power.”
Needless to say, the community’s access to solar energy has enabled the health centre to operate even at night, unlike in the previous occasion when there was no electricity or other source of power at the health centre. This has tremendously improved service provision as the health workers are now working during the night. The benefit of the solar project was also elicited during the outbreak of meningitis in the northern region, of recent. People were able to rush the patients to the health centre quickly, and they would be attended upon even at night.
Now, both the health and commercial necessity of the solar programmes have been of great importance in the Ajia sub-county. The ministry of health donated two fridges to the health centre. These fridges are sufficiently powered by the solar energy. More solar panels were donated to the Ajia Trading Centre Community Project by the Joint Energy and Environmental Projects (JEEP).
Despite the notable changes seen in the access of solar energy, the Ajia health centre is still dogged by various challenges. The centre lacks the necessary solar equipment as they are expensive to acquire and maintain. Similarly, the panels, whose main purpose was to light up the health centre and to power freezers, which are key to storing medicine and other medical supplies, are at times overloaded as people also charge their mobile phones.