In the last month, we’ve sent solar suitcases to three continents! Villanova Students from Philadelphia brought a suitcase to a health promotor in Nicaragua in May. Next, WE CARE Solar volunteer Irene Abagi brought a solar suitcase to a hospital in Kenya. And, the same week we sent three solar suitcases with photographer Gloria Upchurch to Tanzania. The photo shows Gloria introducing the suitcase to Bashay primary school. We also equipped Adam Thompson from ehealth Nigeria with an expanded solar suitcase. He’ll be using our suitcase to power electronic medical record systems in Nigeria.
We’ve heard terrific updates about our portable suitcase in Burma, which is helping midwives to do births near the Burma-Thai border. They’ve requested four more. We also learned that two of our solar suitcases are bringing light to health workers in Tibet! Meanwhile our house continues to fill up with suitcases, thanks to the tireless efforts of Hal Aronson (co-founder) and other volunteers including Rob Teigen and Mike Strykowski. We will be sending four to Uganda in the next few weeks…as soon as we return from teaching educators at Solar Energy International in Colorado!
When the Kitchen Table Wasn’t Enough
August 13, 2025
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In the early years of We Care Solar, every Solar Suitcase was built by hand—one at a time, often by students, volunteers, and our own team—for a health facility in need of light for safe deliveries.
