April 18, 2019

We have created 3 scholarships for female solar engineers!

As most of you will know, we donate 50% of our profits to charities linked to the raw materials we rescue. With our leather system, we were determined to support renewable energy causes and we are now able to announce that our charity partner for our rescued leather project is Barefoot College.

Barefoot, Working the Circuit Board - Elvis & Kresse

Here is Barefoot College, in a nutshell:

Barefoot College is a hybrid enterprise founded by Bunker Roy in 1972 and is engaged in education, skills, economic and business development, health resources provision, clean drinking water provision, women’s empowerment and electrification through solar power specifically for rurally poor people.
Barefoot College’s Training Centre in the village of Tilonia, India trains rural women from across the globe to be Solar Engineers. The Centre also provides facilities for night schools to partner communities, in which girls heavily outnumber boys.

Barefoot Solar Engineer at work - Elvis & Kresse
Every new engineer electrifies an average of 50 homes when she returns home. This electrification consists of installing and maintaining 1 Solar Home Lighting System (equipped with 2 USB charging hubs, four LED lights and a 75W panel) and 1 solar lantern. There is also a Rural Electronic Workshop (REW) which they bring to their communities by installing a 300W solar panel, with an inverter, powerful enough to run a fridge. This space and energy allows the community to fabricate lanterns and home lighting systems and service them both.

 

Barefoot College in  Tilonia, India - Elvis & Kresse

This is the start of a beautiful partnership and we hope to share more and more of our Barefoot story over the coming years. For now, lets go back to the beginning... 

Barefoot's founder, Bunker Roy is a social enterprise legend and Kresse has always been a fan. In 2018, at the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards Kresse met with Barefoot's Director, Meagan Fallone. You could credit this meeting to luck, but really you should credit it to Cartier's incredible effort to build a community of impact entrepreneurs.

It takes a year to go from a first meeting to a first donation and that moment is now. Initially we predicted that Elvis & Kresse would be able to create one scholarship. But thanks to our incredible customers and supporters, thanks to you, we have been able to create three!

Meet María, Silvana and Angelica, these amazing women from Guatemala are currently in India becoming solar engineers.

Guatemalan Engineers - Elvis & Kresse Barefoot Donation




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