Dirty dung fuel with big returns

While seeking to provide energy for cooking needs, a large population in Africa particularly in Tanzania have been using firewood and charcoal.

This has led to massive environmental damage as scientists predict a release of 6.7 billion tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere by year 2050 following burning of wood fuel in African households.

Initiatives have been made to ensure other sources of energy are generated to support advanced standards of living which in the end will lessen environmental impact.

Such initiatives included the one made by a group of university students who have teamed up to come with the most innovative solution for cooking energy.

Edson Mhenga, 21, a third year student from University of Dar es Salaam pursuing a degree in statistics has teamed up with Neema Igogo 21, a second year students who is taking a degree in agri-business and Jacob John,24, a graduate from University of Dar es Salaam who majored in Accounting to form Tanzania Cow Dung Energy (TACODE).

Currently they are taking an active role in developing safe and reliable energy to be used for cooking so as to limit the use of firewood and charcoal.

“Our initiative is called Tanzania Cow Dung Energy. This idea came about during the time we participated at DAREnterprisers course, which was conducted by the Cambridge Development Initiative. We had an opportunity to come up with this business idea after we had a lot of thought and saw that there was still a huge demand of energy sources for home consumptions,” explains Edson.

He says traditionally cow dung has been used as a fertilizer however with time it has become a more sustainable power source where is collected and used to produce biogas.

“We realised that the demand for safe and reliable energy to be used for cooking is still in big demand. According to a 2007 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) forest report, in Africa almost 90 per cent of all forest cover are used for energy which are not friendly for our environment,” he cited.

He says at TACODE they plan to do production of charcoal by using cow dung and providing basic technology to nomadic and pastoral societies to make their own cow dung charcoal where the price will be affordable.

Their idea has seen them getting sponsorship from UTT micro-finance which provided them with a working capital and incubation fee.

“The sponsorship will help us to turn our idea into reality. Our advice to the youth is that they should look for opportunities and try to grab such opportunities whenever they present themselves and not let such opportunities go to waste,’ he says.e

On her part, Neema Igogo who is majoring in agri-business says young men and women need to have a strong will if they want to see their ideas succeeded.

“They need to trust their abilities and their Ideas and be willing to learn and to seek for help when they face any obstacle. It’s unfortunate that there are a few youth who still wait for people to show them where the opportunities are instead of just going out there and looking for them,” she says.

According to them, it is their ambition to be part of the change makers that made them go through an eight week training which empowered them and other youth to come up with entrepreneurial ideas that will help in solving a number of challenges within the community and also help them earn a living.

“We learned how to come up with a sound business idea and how to make that business idea into a profitable business this including how to do market research and more, in short it was a useful training,” says a 24-year-old Jacob John.

Jacob and his team says it’s high time that youth start to explore their talents and tap the vast growing technology to help them to make some positive change in their lives.

“This is not the time to give up instead we need to believe that we can achieve all that we need to achieve in life as long as we work hard and we support each other. Each one of us has a role to play to see to it that our dreams and ambition are met,” he states.

Despite the technological and financial challenges, in few years to come they want to see that they become one of the successful entrepreneurs who will have other projects to support the community.