In Maji, after the sun goes down, people live in the dark.
MDC’s first intervention in Maji District took place when Caroline Kurtz found donors, ordered a solar panel and four lights for the Maji Health Center’s Ob-gyn wing so women would have light in the delivery room at night.
In January 2019, MDC began distributing solar home-lighting systems to individual families (a solar panel, battery, three lights and cell phone charging station. People value and care for what they invest in, so MDC makes the systems available on a three-year rent-to-own basis, with rent payments reinvested in a range of community needs. We plan to make solar lighting available deep in the district population of 6000 households. The home-lighting kits are distributed and maintained by MDC’s business manager and a young technician.
When MDC began, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health was building a hospital.
Because the whole district lies beyond the Ethiopian electric grid, the hospital building stood empty, waiting for a power source. Sharing the cost with the local Health Department, MDC raised funds for a solar PV system for the Maji District Hospital in 2020. Their operating partner was Solar Energy Foundation (SEF), an Ethiopian non-profit with a branch office in Maji. Together they imported solar PV equipment from the German company NIWA.
