We are happy and honored to start a new project in East Africa with the trust and support of Jansen PrimeSteps Foundation. The foundation is focused on poverty alleviation through entrepreneurship, and with this new project PrimeSteps is going to help us elevate our work and increase our impact in Kenya, and if possible in Uganda as well.
A few years ago, the Foundation already supported the empowerment of women’s groups in Burkina Faso. In this beautiful but vulnerable country, women and youth, in particular, lack livelihood opportunities and access to energy. The project provided several Lytefire solar ovens, and the users received appropriate training. With this new cooperation, the goal is to go further and incubate six small-scale solar businesses in Kenya to be profitable job creators and suppliers of affordable baked goods in their communities.
We will provide our usual training that covers the technical aspects of the technology (use, maintenance, safety) and the basis of entrepreneurship training will cover stock management, accounting, customer acquisition, among the many other topics, to enable each group to succeed as independent entrepreneurs. For the best success of the entrepreneurs, the project will also provide incubation support beyond the initial training, to troubleshoot any entrepreneurial challenges during the startup phase. We believe this incubator approach is more and more the way Lytefire will structure our impact-oriented work.
As an impact company, at Lytefire we are focused on delivering sustainable equipment to create new income opportunities and empower populations in vulnerable countries. Our team offers innovative training programs that help start local businesses or promote the transfer of technological know-how to vocational schools. Every Lytefire installed can protect 651 m² of forest each year from being cut down for fuel. Learn more about our impact here and about our educational work here.
