[yele] A retroactive "tour"

As I was combing through the files on my computer, I came across a slew of video clips I had taken while in Yele this past January. This one in particular brought back some good memories of the village the eLuma team called home for 3 weeks:

 

Sights seen include the local primary school and shops around the main Junction, or intersection in the village.  The ride is a bit bumpy, but that's because of the rock-filled roads and not because of Anna's driving :)

[yele] Presidential presence in Yele

"... We commend you for your efforts and we will use this pilot in Yele and see how we will learn from the Yele, Gbonkolenken example for the development in the country."

President Koroma in his speech to the people of Yele on March 9th, 2012 

This is a bit of older news, but although most of eLuma's team members remain State-side, much has been going on in Yele thanks to the able coordination of our on-the-ground manager Laila, with the help of our partner the Lion Heart Foundation.

Back in March, the president of Sierra Leone, Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, paid an important visit to Yele to check out eLuma and the Lion Heart Foundation's development projects.  Check out the full story featured in Cocorioko, Sierra Leone's most widely-read online newspaper.

1 litre, lanterns of light

In any conversation about working in developing countries, the term "capacity building" comes up time and time again - but what does it really mean, or begin to even look like?  And what is the role of our education at MIT in relation to locally-grown knowledge?

In our eLuma project meetings, there has recently been quite a bit of discussion about training and knowledge transfer.  As a possible exercise or real life example of 'capacity building,' one of our teammates brought up the example of the "bleach and water light bulb" - which I didn't quite understand until watching this video:

For more information about the MIT-seeded, community-grown initiative, check out the organization, called Isang Litrong Liwanag.