Akon has an ambitious new project #AkonLightingAfrica quickly went viral online but it was seemingly ignored by mainstream media. All that changed with his recent sit down interview with CNN.
In the interview he talked about his motivation for starting #AkonLightingAfrica, including:
- the early struggles of the campaign
- the lack of accountability in foreign aid.
“I realized Africa would have to be built by Africans themselves,” said Akon. “So we wanted to create a generation of doers and people that would actually make a difference, so ultimately I just decided to start with myself.”
Akon has helped with:
Electrification: 100,000 street-lamps, 1,000 solar micro-generators and 200,000 household electric systems: all these different solutions were proposed and installed in targeted localities, thus creating direct and indirect jobs mainly for local youth.
Resources:
→ With an average investment of $75 000 per village, Akon Lighting Africa is playing an increasingly important role in the electrification of Africa.
→ The public-private partnerships established with partners Solektra, Give1 Project, Akon Corp, Huawei, Sumec and Nari, as well as the excellent relations established with a number of Heads of States are encouraging signs for the future of Akon Lighting Africa.
→ Above and beyond this clean and environmentally-friendly energy solution, Akon Lighting Africa also provides employment.
✓ Direct jobs: A network of young people is employed to learn how to install and maintain solar solutions, and to acquire technical expertise.
✓ Indirect jobs: small businesses, cafes, agriculture, evening classes, night transport… with electricity, everything becomes possible. So that their initiative can become a benchmark, the founders of Akon Lighting Africa have started to carefully monitor their activities to quantify the number of indirect jobs created.
