Madagascar Hospital Solar Project!

The Friends of Madagascar Trust (NZ)

Introduction

Back in 1997 there was a worldwide call that went out from the African Evangelical Fellowship (AEF) for volunteers to help build the first ward at the mission hospital, Hopitaly Vao Vao Mahafaly (HVM) in Mandritsara, Madagascar. The first team to respond to this call was made up of folk from the Opawa Baptist Church. Support for the building of this mission has continued, with teams going to Mandritsara in 2003, 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2013.

After a successful mission in 2016 to install a solar power system on the school and radio station, our sights were again set on the hospital.

230V mains power in Mandritsara is expensive and very intermittent, necessitating the need for other standby generators. All power generation is by way of diesel, which is always in short supply in the rainy season when roads are closed. The local power supply is also quite unstable, which causes a lot of problems with the hospital’s electronic equipment. The hospital recently suffered damage to its transformer during a storm and was forced to run on its own diesel generators for several months while the transformer was away being repaired. An off-grid solar power system will provide the hospital with stable, reliable power 24-7. Along with significant annual cost savings, this will enable the staff to focus on their core mission of providing the best possible health care they can to the people of Mandritsara.

The planning of the new solar system has taken over a year by the committed North Canterbury based team. The system has been designed and largely supplied from NZ, with the batteries coming from South Africa. Funding of the system has been shared between the Friends of Mandritsara Trust (UK) and the Friends of Madagascar Trust NZ. From the time of shipping it has taken over 4 months for the materials to arrive on site. A 3-man team will leave New Zealand in April to carry out the installation and commissioning the system, and at the same time an electrical engineer from Europe will be joining them to carry out significant upgrades to the hospitals AC power system.

Whilst the material costs have been covered, we now need your assistance to fund the travel and accommodation costs for the team who are travelling from New Zealand. These 3 men are gifting their time so we want to ensure that there are no other costs to them given the significant contribution they, and their families, are making.

Non-travelling Captain (Charles) to support Andrew, Dan and Samuel who are installing and commissioning the system.