Julieth Mollel, Solar Sister Entrepreneur
At her home near Arusha, Tanzania Solar Sister entrepreneur Julieth Mollel prepares dinner in her courtyard outside of her kitchen cooking on both her clean wood cookstove and charcoal cookstove she bought from Solar Sister. Cooking at night is easier now with the clean cookstoves that puts out very little smoke and uses only a fraction of the firewood or coal of a traditional three-stone cookstove but also with her Solar Sister solar lantern to light up the area brightly while she works. Julieth’s personal world is brighter because, as a Solar Sister entrepreneur near Arusha, Tanzania, she earns enough money to send her grandchildren to school. Until she started working for Solar Sister in Tanzania life was becoming almost unbearable for Julieth. Cooking over her traditional cook stove made of three stones and an open fire pit put out a lot of smoke that she breathed in when she cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner for her family.
Julieth has been working for Solar Sister almost since it opened in Tanzania in 2013, almost three years at this time. She heard about the solar lanterns and the opportunity to sell the lanterns and thought she could give it a try. She also learned about the cookstoves and tried the wood cookstove herself first. She soon saw that it used much less fuel than the traditional way of cooking and that she did not have to gather as much firewood. She was also pleased that it put out very little smoke. She decided that she could sell these solar lanterns and cookstoves herself. She has had a lot of success selling the products to her community which consists of small scattered farms.
Julieth is helping to support her grandchildren to go to school and her granddaughter Ritha just graduated from a private primary school and is taking exams to get into the secondary school. While she still supplements her income by selling crops she is able to have a little savings put aside from her Solar Sister sales. She stands tall when she says
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