Objectives

The main targets of the project can be divided in (i) educational and (ii) practical. The educational targets consist in teaching what sustainability is, what renewable energies are, raise the concern of the students on the peculiar ecosystem in where they live, how fragile it is and what actions, if any, are required to protect it. 

The practical objectives consist in a series of workshops in which we had built systems to use renewable sources of energy for cooking, lighting and the sanitarian showers. Although electrification is imperative in the area, due to the limited time and founding we decided to concentrate our efforts for saving wood in the kitchen, and among all the available technologies we selected a number of them based on the conditions of the area, that is, temperature, humidity, availability of raw materials (manure, clay, and solar radiation among others), etc. The selected sources of energy for the school of Diogo Vaz were solar and biogas.

Besides the educational targets above mentioned we described a little of the science behind the workshops. As we taught these principles the students, might be able to master the design-operation of the units for a given set of conditions.