February 4, 2015
UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley
Credit: University of California
In 2008, an idea for bringing solar-powered light and electricity to energy-starved sub-Saharan Africa was burning brightly in Laura Stachel's mind.
Stachel, an obstetrician turned public health graduate student at UC Berkeley, was appalled at conditions she saw at a maternity ward in a hospital in northern Nigeria. Frequent power outages meant emergency patient care was delayed, disrupted, or just impossible.
Stachel and her husband, solar energy educator Hal Aronson, devised the solar suitcase — delivering power and light from a most reliable source, the sun. The Blum Center for Developing Economies, at UC Berkeley, helped bring We Care Solar to life. Now, the nonprofit has shipped its 1,000th solar suitcase to provide electricity to health clinics trying to recover from the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone.