Yemeni Girls Turn to Solar Energy To Keep Power On
A team of teenage girls who were “tired of darkness” invented solar-powered appliances and created a company that is selling and distributing them around the country, writes Nafeesa Syeed.
SANAA — For Wafa Al-Rimi, Yemen's revolution brought dark days. Though power outages are frequent in the country, Al-Rimi says during the past year's unrest, some days saw less than an hour of electricity.
Attempting to study for exams in those conditions got the 16-year-old and some of her classmates thinking: How could they keep the lights on?
"We were tired of darkness," Al-Rimi says. So, they turned to the sun.
Through an entrepreneurship program at their government school, an all-female team invented solar-powered appliances and established a company, Creative Generation, through which they've vended their wares to hotels and government offices. In November, they were named “best company of the year” in a regional competition for young Arab entrepreneurs organized by INJAZ Al-Arab, the regional member of Junior Achievement Worldwide, a Colorado-based business education organization. The Yemeni students say their motivation has always been to help their society. In the process though, they say they've also paved new possibilities of leadership for young women in a society where custom can keep females out of the workplace.
