Kopernik’s Wonder Women Eastern Indonesia is a proven and award-winning program with a distribution network of primarily female sales agents - our affectionately named Wonder Women - that sell technologies, such as solar lights, water filters and cookstoves, to people in last mile communities.
Project Type
- Technology Distribution
- Wonder Women Program
Partners
THE PROBLEM
Indonesia’s archipelago of more than 17,000 islands is home to over 250 million people. A vast number of these people live in unserved or underserved parts of Indonesia - what we call ‘the last mile’ - where there is limited access to basic infrastructure services. An estimated 60 million people live without access to electricity at all, while many more manage with unreliable electricity access, suffering through frequent, productivity-draining black-outs. Additionally, almost 100 million people rely on smoky, fuel-hungry three-stone fires for cooking that can affect people’s health.
THE SOLUTION
Kopernik has been working with Indonesian women since 2011 to make clean energy technologies available to people in remote communities, addressing issues of distribution and access. These affectionately-labelled ‘Wonder Women’ are active in closing the energy gap in Indonesia and also play an important role inspiring others in their communities through what they achieve as micro-social-entrepreneurs.
The program empowers women to become micro-social-entrepreneurs as they sell technologies like solar lights, water filters and clean cookstoves within their communities, earning a margin on every sale and boosting their income to support their families and themselves. While at the same time, clean energy technologies are available to people in remote villages in some of Indonesia’s poorest provinces.
Kopernik assists Wonder Women to access simple, appropriate and affordable technologies from around the world so that they can connect them with people in the last mile. Our wonder women commonly distribute these three popular technologies:
Our solar lights provide bright solar powered light to assist users to be more productive at night, including studying, cooking, sewing, or keeping a business open longer for increased sales or capacity. They also reduce the household costs of fuel and reduce the harmful health effects of other lighting sources, such as kerosene.
Our clean cookstoves are highly efficient, ultra-clean cookstoves that can be fuelled by a variety of biomass, reducing fuelwood dependency and deforestation. They reduce the harmful effects of smoke in comparison to three-stone fires, commonly used throughout Indonesia.
Our water filters purify dirty, contaminated water through a ceramic candle filter that is impregnated with silver and a core of activated carbon, removing more than 99% of any pathogens, particles and other contamination that may be present making it clean and safe to drink.
THE EXPECTED IMPACT
As successful micro-social-entrepreneurs, our Wonder Women are agents of change: becoming respected advocates of clean energy and health within their communities.
Since 2011, the program has recruited more than 600 Wonder Women who have sold more than 27,000 clean energy technologies to more than 120,000 people in some of Indonesia’s poorest and most remote provinces, where the vast majority of the population lack access to electricity, clean water, and modern cooking methods.
Additionally, our Wonder Women are often considered ‘green technology agents’ as they sell solar lights, water filters and fuel-efficient cookstoves, forming a crucial link in the supply chain connecting carbon-friendly technology with the people who need it the most.
By introducing and selling more than 27,000 units of clean energy technology, the Wonder Women Program has helped to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 16,000 tonnes (measured using a formula per technology basis). For instance, 9,600 units of solar lights sold by Wonder Women are reducing CO2 emissions by 3,730 tonnes and 3,900 fuel-efficient cookstoves are reducing CO2 emissions by an estimated 6,300 tonnes, when compared to three-stone fires. Water filters are reducing carbon emissions by eliminating the need to boil water to make it safe to drink. Wonder Women in the program have sold more than 9,900 water filters and 940 replacement filter candles that have reduced CO2 emissions by an estimated 4,170 tonnes.
All figures are correct as at August 2017.
