I set up and registered SolarAid in 2006, and with the help of a small but dedicated team we soon developed programmes in Sothern and Eastern Africa, raising millions in funding and recruiting all the key staff and trustees in the process.
In the three years since SolarAid's humble beginnings we now have more than 20 staff, working in four countries in Africa and an emerging programme in South America. We’ve developed new products, launched a micro-franchise under the brand name sunnymoney, recruited hundreds of franchisees, sold over 10,000 products, received the first Gold Standard carbon credits in Sub-Saharan Africa and raised considerable support and enthusiasm.
SolarAid has four project countries in Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. We also have a pilot project in Argentina. We are passionate about each country and strive to make clean and affordable energy available to the world's poorest people.
I am passionate about eliminating harmful and toxic kerosene consumption in rural Africa. I believe our micro-franchise model will enable a self-sufficient and sustainable source of clean, affordable and renewable energy to some of the world’s poorest people. Through our sunnymoney brand we will train, support and grant opportunities for local entrepreneurs to sell micro-solar lighting to replace the inefficient, expensive and dangerous methods currently in place.
Nick Sireau, Executive Director, started out in financial journalism, working for thinktank Independent Economic Analysis (IDEA) and newswire Bridge News (now part of Reuters). He worked in charity communications and fundraising for mainline church charity CWM and for international development agency Progressio as Director of Communications. He has travelled widely the world over and recently finished his PhD on the social psychology of Make Poverty History's communications and marketing. He is also co-founder and Chairman of the AKU Society, a medical charity that works in partnership with the Royal Liverpool University Hospital to find a cure for AKU, a rare genetic disease affecting his two sons. He is also a non-executive Director of GenSeq, a bioinformatics company that carries out gene sequencing.
