Yampah Mountain High School students help bring reliable electricity to rural Tanzania

Jaymin Kanzer/Post Independent
Yampah Mountain High School partnered with We Share Solar last week to help rural Tanzanian schools gain access to reliable electricity.
YMHS students helped construct five “Solar Suitcases” to send to five different rural Maasai schools.
Equipped with solar panels, the suitcases will be shipped along with booklets to help schools maintain and repair them as needed., The project simultaneously introduces parts of the world to reliable electricity and gives the Maasai what they need to become self-reliant.
“By combining solar energy and engineering education with real-world applicability, teachers cultivate student interest in STEM subjects and inspire them to meet an immediate need in local communities and in the developing world,” We Share Solar says on their website.
We Share Solar donated a massive chunk of the equipment to YMHS, while the Aspen Thrift Store provided additional funding.
This is Yampah High’s second collaboration with We Share Solar to help rural Africa gain solar power.
“We made (suitcases) in 2008,” said Soozie Lindbloom, a former Solar Energy International employee and current YMHS counselor. “At that time, it was going to a hospital. Dr. Laura Stachel went to Nigeria to do her Phd. The maternal mortality rate was very high. She went expecting bad training or hygiene issues, but she found impeccable standards being performed in dark cement hospitals. They couldn’t reliably see what they were working on, and that is how We Share Solar was created.”
Since that fateful 2013 trip, We Share Solar and Solar Energy International have partnered with schools worldwide to involve students and teachers in addressing energy access issues.
“I signed up for this because I wanted to help people. A lot of the time, as people grow up, they lose a lot of their empathy,” senior An Welch said. “I think that being able to do this, even as a high schooler, is a good way to lead into a more caring world, and I like to be able to help the people who actually ask for it. They are going to receive booklets so they will gain the knowledge to do it themselves, and not have to rely on us to help them.”
YMHS recently completed its second of three “interim weeks” where they delve deep into subjects not normally covered by the U.S. Education System. Three times a year, students at YMHS have a plethora of subjects to learn about. From wolves’ impact on the environment to gaining pilot hours on their flight simulator, Yampah offers students an interactive way to discover their passions.
“There’s strong research showing the positive impact on brain development when students engage in hands-on learning, giving back to others, and experiencing curiosity and fun alongside their peers,” Yampah Principal Leigh McGown Kauffman said. “It’s real-world learning that’s relevant, builds school culture, and brings together a diverse mix of students who might not otherwise collaborate.Seeing the real-world impact that has grown from these experiences—like the Solar Suitcase project—is something I’m incredibly proud of.”
The importance and rarity of the opportunity didn’t appear just to the adults in the room. The students could also feel the significance of what they were enacting.
“Since we come from an alternative school like this, being able to help out another small community of people, who don’t have what we have, is such a cool opportunity that so many don’t have the same chance to do,” junior Devin Denton Rush said.
The last week of January was unique at YMHS. Some students were away staying overnight at a zoo in Colorado Springs, while some spent their nights camping in one of the 14th Mountain Division Huts hidden away in the mountains. Five students decided to spend their week learning about our dependence on fossil fuels, and our need for renewable energy.
Lindbloom and ‘science teacher extraordinaire’ Monika Okula fronted the necessity of understanding a need for change, and their passion for the issue rubbed off on their students.
“It’s not just the way we get to learn about something you don’t get to see or hear about every day,” senior Tate Reed said. “But it’s the fact that we get to transfer this over to a completely different part of the world and help people.”
As alternative schools usually do, Yampah hopes to be trailblazing a new path for a more connected world.
“In the Solar Suitcase Interim, our students chose to be global changemakers,” Lindbloom said. “We hope to not only inspire our YMHS community with this project, but also encourage other teachers and students of the valley to work with We Share Solar and build Solar Suitcases.”
Currently, Lindbloom and Okula are silently working on writing grants, hoping to get the chance to fly across the Atlantic and hand-deliver the suitcases to the Maasai people. Their goal is to be able to hand the suitcases over personally and be able to give workshops to students and teachers alike.
“We want to be able to help set up the Solar Suitcase Systems so they know how the systems work and can troubleshoot if anything goes wrong. We are currently writing grants to help fund our trip,” Lindbloom said.

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