(Daily Beast) — An innovative social enterprise, Solar Sister is aiming to eliminate energy poverty in rural communities throughout Africa by empowering women there. With an Avon-style distribution program providing affordable solar technologies, Solar Sister’s band of women entrepreneurs is replacing kerosene lanterns with solar lights that are safer and healthier to use and encourage education and foster economic and environmental benefits. Simple, basic improvements with far-reaching benefits.

The notion for Solar Sister first took root with Katherine Lucey, who had worked as an investment banker financing power projects for developing countries. Knowing firsthand that access to electricity is fundamental to development, she also recognized that large-scale power projects didn’t invest in infrastructure that brings electricity to the rural poor. So there needed to be a way to distribute affordable energy to places like sub-Saharan Africa, where a mere 5 percent of the rural population has access to the grid.

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