Rotary Club Malta has continued its support of Kids of Africa village in Uganda with the installation of a €60,000 mini-PV electrical grid.

Equipment for the installation of a €60,000 mini-photovoltaic electrical system for the Kids of Africa orphanage in Uganda has arrived on site and is currently being installed.

The equipment was purchased by Rotary Club Malta through funds from the Malta government’s commitment under the Copenhagen Accord, reached during the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009, to provide developing countries with new and additional ‘fast-start’ financing for the period 2010-2012 to enable and support the enhanced implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The go-ahead for the funding was received last October and Rotary Club Malta negotiated a favourable price for the equipment.

The local Rotary Club initially supported the Kids of Africa orphanage, built on a 10,000 m2 site off Lake Victoria near Entebbe in Uganda, some five years ago when it donated solar panels for five new houses at the orphanage, which at the time housed 50 children. Since then the orphanage, founded by a Swiss national, Burkhard Vamholt, has doubled in size and now houses close to a hundred children.

The current project will eliminate a chronic power shortage at the village that is experienced across the country, with daily power cuts. The orphanage has an old diesel-powered generator that is inefficient, polluting and costly to run. The new mini-PV system consists of photovoltaic panels that power an array of batteries, enabling the village to do away with the generator.

Thanks to the new system, which should be up and running by March, there will be no power cuts again since the battery back-up will step in when the main electricity supply fails and the kids’ village will save 30% of their electricity costs.

Rotarian Ian De Cesare, who has been monitoring progress and intends to visit Uganda to see the system being switched on, said: “It is a source of great satisfaction to see the work being undertaken at Kids for Africa going from strength to strength. Kids for Africa is a long-term mission with three primary goals: “A caring and dignified family environment; good health through a balanced, healthy diet and regular physical exercise; and practical education, which focuses on the most promising employment opportunities in the Ugandan context.”