Our rural village energy hub (RVE) not only provides access to sustainable, appropriate technology for rural communities but also creates jobs. One of the most important jobs related to the implementation of a RVE within a community is that of the so-called “energy vendor”. This role is critical to providing a high quality and reliability of services for water, electricity, biogas and organic fertiliser. As our solution is deployed remotely, we rely on remote data access to the goings-on of the RVE unit via mobile phone network – but we do not actually employ an RVE.SOL employee locally.

The executive committee of the Sidonge Self Help Group at one of our meetings

Therein lies the opportunity for a candidate to take the first job we create indirectly! Accountable to the local community and the self help group,the energy vendor is responsible for day to day operations of the RVE unit. This is ideally someone who has a secondary school education, is respected within the community and is a fast learner. This person is employed by the community self help group after being vetted by us for technical acumen. Now for the challenge of training this person.

Being a believer in the power of visual communications to get a point across in a way that ensures long term retention, I engaged Mark Allen and Eric Baker of VISUALTranslations LLC. They graciously agreed to help us, on a reduced rate/pro-bono basis, to turn my ideas for training into a series of visual documents which would cross language and technology barriers. At the same time these visual maps will remain with the self help group as a reference manual should an issue ever arise that requires reference.

I have to say I am really, really pleased with the end result! Attached below is one out of a series of 8 key themes. Have a look and please tell us what you think via the comments below.

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