You may wonder to know for what reasons Abiola has been founded. For commercial, economic or humanitarian reasons? Abiola gGmbH is a non-profit organization.
One sentence would not be enough to give an answer to that question. The following lines will describe the different contexts and the resulting development of the project.
The basic idea behind Abiola is purely humanitarian. A founding team with a lot of experience in the use of solar energy (photovoltaics) wanted to make it possible for people who live without power supply to use this technology.
Within about 2 years, today’s Abiola product line was created with the described Abiola Offgrid charging systems. The first ordered edition of Turbo Charger (60W) and Charger (30W) included 200 pieces.
If one would only give away all devices to families, villages, schools and so on with various components from the Abiola assortment, then it would be a great thing at first, but the goal would not be achieved permanently.
What is the use of the solar charging system in a village if people could not later buy the power banks, the LEDs, the hand lamps, the mobile phone adapters, the reading glasses?
It is the same if a village has been given a loading system as a gift, so neighboring villages should later also be given the opportunity to procure such a system themselves.
We soon realized that the entire range should be permanently stored and offered in large quantities, because the procurement of the systems often takes months, as they have to be brought to Germany by sea. Sending these products back to Africa or to another country later means an enormous expenditure of time.
Thus, without a commercial background (the<<< What? the promotion of solar charging systems?) also not useful.
We believe that the combination of humanitarian activities and a commercial trading platform also provides an opportunity to promote the “solar technology” profession in the affected countries.
Our goal is to equip hundreds of villages, schools and auxiliary stations free of charge with the Abiola solar kits and, if possible, to get them in front of local partners who are driving the project forward.
The prices for Abiola systems and components must be cheap and affordable so that they can also be bought by poor people.
In order to find suitable projects, aid organisations and non-profit associations are valuable as an Abiola partner. They have been supervising projects for years and know the local people and situation very well.
For more details, please have a look at the menu item “Charity”.
In this way, the question “human or commercial” could also be answered:
- Both are important and complement each other
- Solar technology is important for people without power supply
- The image of “solar technology” as a profession must become as self-evident in these countries as the image of a farmer or craftsman as a profession.
- Abiola partners (organisations and associations) know the aid projects and the local people are therefore important for Abiola.
