A 14-year-old boy is being hailed for generating electricity from biogas, lighting up several homes in Borana zone, southern Ethiopia. Adan Hussein Dida, who charges each home in his village $0.87 per month, supports his family with the money he raises from his electricity project. Dida, a grade eight student at Tula Web Primary School, says he embarked on the project to ease the suffering of villagers who lack basic services such as roads, hospitals and electricity, local media reported. He started the project started from the backyard of his parents, using decomposing animal waste in a two-metre deep hole. He started the project to reduce the suffering of his fellow villagers with no basic services like roads, hospitals or electricity. He began his business by being able to generate enough electricity for 8 houses. According to the BBC Africa report, his teacher, Boru Sora, says Dida is expanding his project to more houses in the village despite bad roads making it difficult for him to go to towns to purchase the equipment he needs. Dida said his dream is to pursue engineering at the newly established Borana University in Yebelo.
Ethiopia has abundant renewable energy resources and has the potential to generate over 60,000 megawatts (MW) of electric power from hydroelectric, wind, solar and geothermal sources.
Dida is very proud of what he has achieved this far and that he has saved people from the cost of batteries and torches and that children can now read at home at night instead of having to rely only on daylight.
Source: BBC News Africa