By Omnia Abbas | Sudan Country Representative
Potential Energy has made significant progress since our last update in our efforts to expand our reach in Darfur. In order to access women living in remote areas of North Darfur, with the help of our local partner, Sustainable Action Group (SAG), we recruited 9 community-based organizations (CBOs) as new cookstove distribution partners. Assessment of these CBOs’ performance was conducted in terms of: effective stoves distribution to different geographical ranges, timely financial reporting and commitment in submitting distribution lists with beneficiaries’ information. A representative was selected from each group to participate in a steering committee. All steering committee members completed training on the benefits and proper usage of the stove. To support CBOs in their distribution efforts by discussing challenges and solutions early on, SAG held its first quarterly meeting with all CBO representatives to support ongoing efforts to train local sales agents.
We have also made significant progress to expand to new areas within Darfur. We recently signed on a new partner in South Darfur, the Malam Darfur Peace and Development Organization. (Malam is an area located approximately 75 km north of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur and 75 km south of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur). The organization was created to deliver a wide range of resources to the Malam ethnic group and works with an extensive network of indigenous Malam people, including returning refugees. They have focused on education and microfinance, and plan to re-open the Malam Market in 2014. They will assist in the promotion and distribution of the Berkeley-Darfur Stove within their network in South Darfur.
As we expand our distribution network, an interesting development in recent months has been the idea of creating a mobile workshop. Many of the CBOs we are working with operate exclusively in remote areas and have seen a high demand for our clean cookstoves. Creating a mobile workshop for the assembly of the Berkeley-Darfur Stove would be more cost-effective and efficient. We look forward to providing more information on this in our next update!
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