Our EcoGenius is Salima Visram: Soular Backpack for Kenya

By Marisela Valero @lavalero

Our EcoGenius is Salima Visram, was born and brought up in Mombasa, Kenya, beside the Kikambala village, where the 22,000 residents live below the poverty line.
Now living in Canada and is a successful entrepreneur with her own brand called Samala, a fashion company selling vegan leather bags, using earnings to fund Soular Backpack.

Samara founded by Salima Visram

In 2015, Salima launched The Soular Backpack organization, a social business startup that enables children in rural parts of Africa to study every night without the use, cost and health effects of the carcinogenic kerosene lamp. Today, families living under $1 a day spend 25% of monthly income on kerosene, despite the fact that it is expensive and causes numerous health complications. Entire villages and communities burn down every year due to kerosene lamps being knocked over, resulting in 4,000 deaths daily.

Salima with her Soular Backpack

Her work was noticed by TechVibes, Forbes Magazine, CBC & CTV News, TED Talks, Venture Burn & The McGill Reporter, and has been presented to HRH Princess Anne of the UK and Professor Muhamad Yunus.
Salima launched The Soular Backpack 🎒 in 2015 to sell backpacks for school children in Kenya—not any book bags, but carriers with a solar panel connected to a battery pack that would be charged while students walked to and from school. At home, they could connect those batteries to an LED lamp, providing light in homes without electricity for five hours or so 💡. Then she added a one-for-one model—for every product sold, a Soular Backpack would be donated to a child in need.

Soular backpack for kids in Kenya. Post by Gabriela Da Cámara

The Soular Backpack has also been awarded «Innovation of the Year» by McGill University, the Gretta Chambers Award, $6,000 from the Dobson Cup Startup Competition in the Social Enterprise Category, and has been selected as a semi-finalist in the Forbes $1 Million to Change the World Competition, as well as a finalist in the Harvard Innovation Competition, and the Gifted Citizen Distinction.

Solar Back Pack for Africa

The Soular Backpack in Disney

Visram partnered with Academy Award Actress Lupita Nyong’o when Nyong’o heard about the backpacks in 2015, shortly after finishing filming Disney’s Queen of Katwe, which is set in rural Uganda, where the kerosene lamp is central to the plot of the story. “I played Harriet, the mother to Phiona Mutesi, who finds herself in abject poverty and struggling to keep her family together and provide for them. Phiona wants to study chess.

The Soular Backpack in Disney

And in one of the scenes, she lights the kerosene lamp to do some studying at night, and her mother reminds her that it’s expensive and that she couldn’t afford it, so she has to switch it off,” Nyong’o told ABC News.On every Soular Backpack, there’s a quote from Lupita that reads, ‘The Power Is In Your Step”.

Nyong’o and Disney went with the Soular team to Katwe in Uganda to distribute backpacks there in July. Soular was also showcased at the premiere of the movie in Hollywood later in September 2016.

The history behind our EcoGenius

By Shahinoor Visram

A lot of her Saturdays, as a child, were spent with children from this school, and every time she went to the school she would watch the girls’ choir perform. They were a talented group of girls, but didn’t have the funds to participate in the Kenya Music Festival – a nationwide, prestigious and annual competition that brought the best and most talented students in Kenya together.

I remember her being moved every time she heard them sing, and then being saddened by the fact that these young girls were so talented, yet could not maximize their potentials.

All smiles and thumbs up when you are a part of the SoularFam

At the age of 12, she started a jewelry line in order to raise money for these girls. A year later, the jewelry she sold raised enough money for the team to register, prepare and travel up to the competition. That year, they stood first in district level, first at provincial level and second at nationals.

The year after, the team stood first, nationally Ever since, Salima has spearheaded several projects, and makes a conscious effort to try and make a positive difference in the lives of the people around her wherever she finds herself. At 14, she gave the keynote address for UNICEF, on the protection of children’s rights in tourism. At 17, she wrote to Microsoft, asking for their permission to start a pilot project alongside the government of Kenya, which has the potential to save lives. At 18, she brought students from all over the world to the Kikambala village, to teach 800 children how to use computers, at Microsoft’s first E-School Lab in Africa. These are among other things that Salima has done.

All the students with their Soular Backpack

As a student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, Salima continued to carry these values with her and still continues to influence the lives of those around her.
Tell us, what do you think of Salima’s projects? Awesome right?

Source  www.passiton.com

Photos: The Soular Backpack in Facebook