Women + Energy = Development

With your help, Elephant Energy has made exciting process with our Women’s Energy Project in the last three months. Our women sales agents brought light to over 300 people living without electricity using our rent-to-own program, and launched new marketing initiatives, including educational radio programming and village-based demonstrations.

Our rent-to-own program, which allows rural customers the ability to pay in small increments, completed its fourth cycle in August. Providing our customers flexible payment terms has particularly important this year, as Namibia is in the midst of the worst drought the country has seen in 30 years. The drought has caused rural households to face extraordinary strains on already strained cash supply, making the combination of money-saving solar products and a flexible payment scheme, nothing short of life-changing. One of our customers tells us:

“Since I bought it, I have saved money for cell phone charges. It is so helpful and not wasteful. I am not fearful to go walk outside at night any more. If I had to pay the full price up front, I could never have bought this light.”  -Rent-to-own customer Rosemary Malimi

In June, Elephant Energy conducted a Vocal Empowerment Workshop for our women sales agents, during which time women learned tools for approaching potential customers with confidence. The women recorded dramatic skits for use in educational radio advertisements, and learned how to perform shadow puppet plays using solar-powered lights for use in educational and entertaining village demonstrations. With our highest selling months of August-October upon us, Elephant Energy's marketing efforts are in full swing, with radio ads airing weekly and flyers, banners, posters, t-shirts and bags used by Elephant Energy staff and sales agents to promote awareness of Elephant Energy’s products. Our Regional Sales Manager, Elizabeth, says: ‘it is only a matter of time before Elephant Energy is a household name’.

Women are central to Elephant Energy's efforts to deliver affordable energy solutions to off-grid households throughout Namibia. We do this not only because we believe that investing in women is the right thing to do, but also because it is good business; women are traditionally responsible for procuring and managing household energy resources in Namibia, and our women sales agents are best-suited to reach out to the women in their families and communities with access to these life-changing products. 

As Elephant Energy expands into new areas, there is a great opportunity to scale this women-focused sales model to change the lives of thousands of rural Namibians. 2013 has been a year of enormous growth for Elephant Energy, with our rural distribution network expanding from one urban shop and 12 rural sales agents to 8 urban shops and 48 rural sales agents, furthering a sustainable business model that generates income for rural entrepreneurs and delivers energy access to off-grid households.   

With a growing group of supporters as a strong foundation, Elephant Energy will continue to test the limits of what is possible. We would love if you would tell your friends about us. Invite them to learn about our work on our website, “like” us on Facebook, watch one of our videos on Youtube, or follow us on Pinterest. Tell them why you chose to support Elephant Energy, and what it means to you.

On behalf of our sales agents and customers, we at Elephant Energy would like to offer a huge “Ni’itumezi’ (Thank You!) to all of our supporters.  Together, we’ve brought light and economic opportunity to thousands of off-grid households around Namibia. Without your support, none of this would be possible.