Check out this Copenhagen post from our friends at Manna Energy Limited. Manna Ltd. is installing several hundred water treatment systems, biogas generators, and high efficiency cook stoves across rural Rwanda, addressing the most critical public health and environmental challenges.

Mugonero sits atop a hill on the western border of Rwanda, accessible only by a red dirt road riddled with bumps and hairpin switchbacks. In a small chapel, on the grounds of a missionary hospital that overlooks the Congo and sparkling Lake Kivu, 3,000 people were massacred in 1994. The Mugonero community is still struggling with how to rebuild after these brutal acts.

Manna Energy Limited — a social enterprise founded to combine the carbon finance market with innovative technologies in an economically sustainable way — is committed to partnering with Mugonero and other communities across Rwanda to help implement sustainable, environmentally sound technologies for clean energy, clean water, and economic solutions that foster health, education and gender equality.

For example, in 2007 at the Mugonero Orphanage in Rwanda, Manna Ltd. and Engineers Without Borders – USA installed a treatment system that is now providing water for 100 AIDS and genocide orphans. As Victor Monroy, the Guatemalan director of the orphanage told us, “The Children’s Village did not have clean water available on-site for the past six years. The only available option to drink pure water was to boil it. Due to the long and relatively complicated process of boiling water, quite often the children decided not to boil the water and suffered from digestive and intestinal problems. Now there is plenty of pure water available to cover all the needs of the orphanage. We are convinced that the health of all our kids will improve considerably through the precious and abundant supply of pure drinking water.”

Manna Ltd. is working to expand these programs through the benefits of the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) by generating Carbon Emission Reductions (CERs) from the offset of firewood used to provide basic water and energy needs. We hope that the Copenhagen conference will further enable small-scale projects like these in Least Developed Countries (LDCs)—something that is especially important in LDCs that adopt a policy to offset the use of firewood by replacing it with renewable energy technologies. We also hope that the US will take a leading role in supporting these activities and similar US-based efforts.

With the magnitude of the destruction that occurred in Mugonero and the rest of Rwanda, the challenge of rebuilding the country is immense. Community leaders are working everyday towards improving the quality of life for everyone. But where you might expect a feeling of helplessness, there is instead a common determination to rebuild. Manna is committed to being a part of this effort. We hope those at Copenhagen are, too.

Check out the video below to learn more about Manna Energy Limited and all that we do.

-Evan Thomas, Executive Vice President, Manna Energy Limited