Promoting Development with Female Producers in Rocky Point

From 22 January to 13 February, blueEnergy worked to increase productivity for a group of women working in the community of Rocky Point, Nicaragua, by installing solar energy and a water pumping system. 

By Pearl Downs -- Rocky Point, a predominantly creole community located about 4 miles from Pearl Lagoon, is a farming community completely off the grid. Thanks to ONUDI, INATEC and FADCANIC, blueEnergy was able to coordinate and execute an innovative project based on renewable energy with an emphasis on gender. About 17 community members of the "Christian Solidarity Producers", mostly women, benefited from a project to improve their agricultural production and hence their living conditions in the community.

This group has been organized and working together since 2009 with the help of FADCANIC who has been assisting with internal organization and for the planting and marketing of organic agricultural products.

Women's Group and blueEnergy team together in Rocky Point

The blueEnergy project was based on the installation of solar PV on the group house and storage building, as well as the installation of a solar pumping system from the house well through a sand filter and into a storage tank. 

Solar panels on the women's group house

Putting finishing touches on the water filtration system

The blueEnergy technical team was composed of Gilles Charlier, George Lopez, Chris Sparadeo, Quentin Nouvelot, and Miles Hooper, who successfully completed the hard work over a period of a little more than two weeks. 

Mixing cement for the storage tank tower

The project stems from a desire to strengthen blueEnergy initiatives that encourage productive uses of renewable energy and water by families impoverished communities in the region. Furthermore, the initiative also helps to strengthen and promote gender equality in our organization and empowerment of coastal womens' capabilities.

This project was implemented by blueEnergy with support from the Renewable Energy Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations and promoted by the Ministry of Energy and Mines of the Government of Nicaragua.

Your Spring Break Adventure Starts Here!

Every year blueEnergy invites university students to escape their comfort zone and join us on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua for a spring break adventure unlike any other. We brave the elements to bring clean water and solar energy to the residents who live on less than $2 a day, we speak Creole English, Spanish and Miskitu, we love our work and we want you to be a part of it.

Raising the solar panels in Rocky Point

This year we plan to continue installing solar panels in Rocky Point, a small creole farming community that blueEnergy has been working with for over a year. The beneficiaries are very grateful for the gift of light and you will see what an amazing difference a few lightbulbs can make in the lives of these families!

Loving the light in Rocky Point

But this doesn't just benefit the families in Rocky Point. You too will see the benefits of the install! Our students will learn the basics of installing solar panels, from determining location to domestic wiring to connecting the control panel and everything else needed to perform small-scale rural electrification. They will learn about the local customs, languages and traditions in addition to getting an up close look at what life is like farming in the jungles of the Caribbean coast!

Students helping locals install solar panels in Rocky Point

But renewable energy isn't the only help that blueEnergy provides. We have a complete Water, Sanitation and Hygiene team that is dedicated to bringing clean water to families by building bio-sand filters and digging wells.

bE director, French ambassador and Corn Island mayor all admiring one of blueEnergy's wells in Bluefields

The blueEnergy spring break itinerary looks a little something like this:

Day 1: Welcome orientation and site visits in Bluefields

Day 2: Water filter construction / WASH course

Day 3: Improved wells site visits and hands-on work

Day 4: Solar class and install preparation

Day 5: Trip to rural community (sleep in rural community)

Day 6: Installations of system return to blueEnergy

Day 7: Reflection sessions and wrap up

Teaching hand washing to children on the island of Rama Cay

Imagine your spring break spent building, installing, teaching, interacting and living the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. This is far from the ordinary and if the extraordinary is what you are looking for, send you application today!