Samuel Mbewe
(Shout Zambia) Ministry of Youth, Sports and Arts in partnership with SNV Zambia and My Solar Zambia has launched a solar empowerment program which will benefit over 9000 youth in some selected provinces among them Eastern, Central and Luapula provinces.
The youths have been trained as distributing agents of clean cook stove and solar home lightning system.
Speaking during the launch of the programme, Acting Director in the Ministry of Sports and Arts Wesley Chikwamu says government is committed to promoting the use of clean energies and disuse of charcoal in order to reduce the negative impacts of climate change which in turn affects overall climate negatively.
He has observed that household energy sector in urban Zambia is dominated by charcoal and that 75 percent of the peri-urban households use charcoal as their primary cooking fuel source regardless of income.
Mr. Chikwamu said the partnership will affect a behavior change by reducing market barriers to scale up clean cooking, strengthening the business enabling environment and leveraging investment in alternative fuels and technologies to protect precious forest resources.
And SNV Zambia opportunities for youth Project Manager Robson Nyirenda says the youth aged between 18-35 years will be engaged as agents of selling solar products.
