By Zuraidah Hoffman –
A co-op volunteer lineman shares downtime (and treats) with children in Caracol, Haiti in May 2014.Do you remember what it was like when the lights turned on for the first time? Not many of us do. For most of us, the only time we don’t take electricity for granted is when the lights go out and we’re left in the dark. We worry about our food spoiling and how to charge our electronic devices to stay connected.
More than 1,000 electric co-op volunteers across the United States, with more than 5,000 directors, managers, office staff, engineers and linemen in other countries, are trained in establishing and maintaining electric cooperatives. NRECA International has benefited more than 100 million people in 42 countries around the world.A lineman working in the Dominican Republic high-fives a local resident after installing power near her home.
Lighting up the world
In 2013, NRECA International recruited several volunteer linemen from Arkansas and Alabama to leave their homes for a few weeks to travel to Guatemala. Several groups were sent over a span of 18 months, and while they were there big things happened in eight small Guatemalan villages. After years of waiting, lightbulbs illuminated homes and schools for more than 1,000 villagers. The promise of a better life came into sight. For the first time, their world became brighter and bigger.
Earlier this year, in the southern part of sun-drenched Haiti, NRECA International staffers counted ballots for a new electric co-op’s first general assembly where members chose their first board of directors. A major part of the mission is not only establishing a power supply in their parts of the world, but also sustaining it by implementing the cooperative business model.
In the northern part of Haiti, Daniel Sanders, a former Mid-South Synergy co-op lineman from Navasota, Texas, fulfilled one of his biggest dreams. Sanders learned a few years ago how putting a single streetlight in the middle of nowhere can give people hope, and he now works for NRECA International helping build distribution grids in Haiti.
Volunteer electric cooperative linemen work with locals in Yei, Sudan, to place a utility pole.And in South Sudan, Randy Erickson, chief mechanic for Kodiak Electric Association in Kodiak, Alaska, found himself sitting under the hot sun with a handicapped Sudanese boy, humming church hymns during a Sunday service. He saw firsthand how helping these communities get access to electricity makes a big difference in the lives of people like that little boy.
Sharing our knowledge
Making this happen is routine work for NRECA International staff members. Their mission began 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy witnessed the signing of a cooperative agreement between NRECA and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The original purpose was, and continues to be, to share with developing countries around the world the lessons rural electric co-ops learned in electrifying rural America. Since then, together with many electric co-ops, NRECA International has shared the successes and expertise of the cooperative business model with developing countries.
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NRECA’s relationship with the Philippines remains strong. This was evident when the strongest typhoon to ever hit our planet landed on the shores of this archipelago in November 2013. Hours after the disaster, NRECA International launched a fundraising campaign to restore power in the affected areas. In three months, funds raised by U.S. electric co-ops and individual donors totaling $100,000 were presented to 11 electric cooperatives devastated by Typhoon Haiyan.
In 1977, another relationship in Asia began. NRECA International helped Bangladesh’s Rural Electrification Board build what many now regard as the developing world’s most successful rural electrification program. Today, 70 electric cooperatives provide electricity to approximately 48,700 rural villages, helping more than 45 million people in rural areas improve their quality of life.
Brightening lives
These early achievements created an outstanding team. In Haiti, NRECA International’s volunteers were the first in the power sector to respond to the devastating 2010 earthquake. They supported relief efforts, connected hospitals and health clinics and helped begin the longer process of reconstructing the Haitian grid and outlying power systems. The work in Haiti continues today in different regions of the country, bringing reliable and affordable electricity to various Volunteer linemen Phil Hogan and Danny Derry from Grundy Electric Cooperative in Missouri prepare a utility pole as a group of local students watch, spellbound.communities.
NRECA International created strong and permanent relationships between local utilities in Guatemala and its member co-ops. It started with a grant from the U.S. government to establish the Electricity for Progress Trust Fund. Since its creation in 2000, the trust fund distributed 100 loans totaling more than $5 million to finance investments in grid-based and off-grid projects throughout rural areas of Guatemala. Over the years, many volunteers from electric co-ops have traveled to Guatemala, often leaving their country for the first time, to light up homes and lives.
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To learn more about the work that NRECA International and electric co-ops do, visit nreca.coop/what-we-do/international-programs.
Zuraidah Hoffman is the communications manager for NRECA International.