August 24, 2014
Dr. T.H. Culhane, Rohit Fenn, and Amit Fenn traveled to Swaziland to work with Science in Action winners Sakhiwe Shongwe and Bonkhe Mahlalela. Rohit is a young man from India who designed a more efficient toilet and Amit is an evolutionary biologist and Rohit’s older brother. Sakhiwe and Bonkhe were interested in working with the Solar CITIES team to add the ‘food waste to fuel and fertilizer’ biogas solution to their toolkit for improved low-cost hydroponics in Swaziland
We stayed at the Sundowners Lodge near Manzini. At the lodge, Peace Corps and other project teams spend their evenings. There is also a crossflow of Swazi and international visitors who share ideas for making the world a better place. During the week, everyone learned how to build a biodigester and saw how they can provide energy security and also help provide food security too!
The Solar CITIES team built a Solar CITIES IBC/ARTI hybrid system for the lodge. Immediately after, they built another one and transported it to the farm of Sakhiwe’s grandfather, Simon. Simon is on the right in blue in the picture.
Now Swaziland has two operating biodigesters that provide fuel cooking food and fertilizer for growing crops.