You are reading the first profile in D-Prize’s 2024 International Women’s Day series!

We’re celebrating women-led organizations that have positively impacted the lives of millions of people living in low-income communities. Our series profiles women founders who have increased access to critical products and services - including solar energy, clean cookstoves, quality farm inputs, and a novel sex-ed program for teenage girls.

 

ElleSolaire

Bringing Light and Energy to 100,000 People

Fatou wakes up every day at 5 AM in her Senegalese village. She is a mother of seven children, and her day begins with roasting coffee beans and making breakfast. The only source of light is from her cooking fire. For this, Fatou pays the price of good health, inhaling toxic fumes linked to lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. After breakfast, Fatou will spend hours collecting firewood to start this arduous process all over. She has little time and opportunity to invest in her livelihood.

Fatou is one of the over 700 million people who do not have access to electricity. In Senegal, 58% of the population is not electrified, and it is often rural Senegalese women who bear the cost of this access gap. 

ElleSolaire exists to serve women like Fatou in two ways. First, the social enterprise provides clean energy solar lamps for household use. Second, the enterprise provides women like Fatou with jobs. They recruit and train women to run their own micro-enterprises in the most remote areas of West Africa, distributing the same solar energy products that have empowered them.

ElleSolaire is founded by Kelly Nwachuku-Lavelle, a first-time female entrepreneur. D-Prize was fortunate to have the chance to support her work and offered a $20K startup grant in 2018. ElleSolaire spent the grant to hire 545 women agents. They distributed clean energy products to more than 2000 homes. With the income from selling solar lamps, those women could pay for healthcare, primary school fees, and food for their families. ElleSolaire connects women with opportunity while investing in their dignity, health, and wealth.

Five years after receiving initial funding from D-Prize, ElleSolaire has grown its impact exponentially. It has empowered 1500 women to earn an income and reached over 102,000 people. The social enterprise has raised over $445,000 in funding. Recently, ElleSolaire was named as a runner-up for the 60 Decibels’ Energy Top Impact Award for Consumer Protection. 

We at D-Prize see that women entrepreneurs are systematically underfunded across many industries. The work of women organizations matters. With organizations like ElleSolaire demonstrating the cascading effect of investing into women entrepreneurs, we believe it is necessary to fund this deep-seated change that women organizations drive.

Learn why D-Prize seeds first-time entrepreneurs creating long-lasting change against poverty here. Do you want to launch a high-impact organization reducing poverty? Subscribe here to receive an alert when our 2024 competition opens.


 

Are you next? D-Prize awards startup capital to social entrepreneurs who apply to our Global Competition.

 

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