Tangible Progress

For NuSol Capacity Fund, last week was rich with success. In Peru, the extensive search for a partnering community came to a conclusion via a unanimous vote by the citizens of Nueva Unión to accept NuSol’s 2010 project offering. Stateside, NuSol formalized its relationship with WAACO (Washington Attorneys Assisting Community Organizations), allowing for continued progress towards the completion of required operational formalities.

Children from Nueva Unión shown with Dustin Welch of NuSol Capacity Fund

Dustin Welch, NuSol’s International Relations Officer, began talks with Nueva Unión several weeks ago. Via recommendations from Cáritas of Huari and the mayor of the Provincial Municipality of Huacaybamba, Mr. Gustavo Reyes Bardeles, Nueva Unión was identified as a potential partnering community for our 2010 project. Located 12 miles northwest of the town of Huacaybamba, Nueva Unión is home to roughly 350 people. To access the village, one must hike approximately 2 hours through mountainous terrain. This limited accessibility has isolated Nueva Unión from Peru’s power grid rendering over 70 homes, a small medical post, and an initial and primary school without access to electricity.

With the help of Mr. Reyes, NuSol circulated a brief questionnaire among the households of Nueva Unión for the purpose of obtaining a socioeconomic profile of the community. This information was used to both verify Nueva Unión’s need and to drive the format of last weeks open forum discussion.

  
Peru Solar 2010 open forum discussion with Nueva Unión

The event, attended by community leaders and Nueva Unión citizens, was organized to ensure that all interested parties understood the project specifics and were involved in the decision making process from the outset of collaboration.

NuSol Capacity Fund moderated the meeting along with Flavio Espinoza, a representative for the province of Huacaybamba and Melchor Melgarejo, head of electrification for the entire province of Huacaybamba. Melchor has extensive experience conducting electrification projects in rural areas of Peru and played an invaluable role in explaining our project to members of the community and fielding questions in both Quechua and Spanish.

The community voted unanimously in favor of accepting our project. They expressed their most urgent needs to be household lighting and laptops for their primary school. In consideration of these necessities, our project will strive to include the provision of rechargeable LED lanterns for each household and several laptops to be used for educational purposes.

NuSol would like to thank everyone who lent a hand during this crucial stage of the Peru Solar 2010 project. A special thanks is owed to Jana Werg of Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany for her considerable input in the planning and design of last weeks presentation and open forum discussion. NuSol also would like to again thank Matt Bain of Sole Graphics for the extensive time and dedication he put forth in the creation of our new website.