Shedding light on a dark situation in West Africa

What began as a cross-cultural exchange program during one student's summer eventually inspired a project that will save hundreds of lives, if not more.

After volunteering at a hospital in West Africa in the summer of 2006, College senior Kathryn Cunningham founded a non-profit organization that uses solar power to provide the energy and running water the hospital desperately needed.

Cunningham was inspired by her father's stories of the Peace Corps to travel to The Gambia, a country in West Africa, through a program called Operation Crossroads Africa.

She volunteered at a five-year-old hospital that only had electricity and running water about eight hours a day, although it is the second largest hospital in the country.

The hospital can only afford to use its one working generator for about eight hours each day and usually designates four to five of those hours to night use. That leaves only three to four hours of electricity and running water for the daylight hours.

Without electricity, the doctors can't use an incubator or an ultrasound machine, perform surgeries or store vaccines in a refrigerator.

They are forced to choose which patients demonstrate the greatest need for ultrasounds and to deliver babies after washing their hands in a bucket, Cunningham said.

This lack of electricity is common to parts of rural Africa that lack access to hydroelectric power, explained African Studies Center director Lee Cassanelli.

When Cunningham returned from The Gambia in August 2006, she tried to return to life as she had known it but couldn't.

She described seeing supplies in an arts and crafts store and imagining how much the children in The Gambia would love them. Upon seeing a $40 skirt in a store, she thought to herself, "$40 would feed a family of 12 for a year and a half." She realized she had to do something.

While she was at the hospital, the chief executive showed her an estimate by the Gam-Solar Company that installing solar panels - which would solve the lack of electricity and running water problem - would cost $300,000.

Cunningham didn't have any easy solutions at the time. "There's not much that a 20-year-old can do about $300,000," she explained to the chief executive.

Or, so she thought.

In October 2006, Cunningham founded Power Up Gambia, a non-profit organization managed by the Delaware Community Foundation, with the goal of raising the $300,000 the Gambian hospital needs. With the help of the Gam-Solar Company, she also hopes to use the money to install solar-powered water and electricity.

"There are people like [Cunningham] who can identify a need that's significant" and make a big impact in a feasible way," said Biology professor Ingrid Waldron, who had Cunningham as a student.

Since October 2006, Power Up Gambia has raised $150,000, meeting half of their goal.

In January of this year, they installed the first solar-powered water pump at the hospital and installed energy-efficient light bulbs in an effort to reduce electricity use.

Cunningham hopes to raise the remaining $150,000 by the end of April. Although this may be difficult, she said she wants to install solar panels to provide the whole hospital with electricity before Malaria season peaks in July.

"Few projects in Africa ever meet the goals they set out," Cassanelli said. But "a lot has been accomplished in just two years."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.