Building a Global Network of Community Resilience Hubs

Nearly every day at The Solar Foundation, we work on developing solar-powered community hubs in Tanzania or Nigeria or Liberia, slowly and steadily moving forward working with our local partners in off-grid or unreliable-grid rural communities. Why do we do this work? It's simple: We believe that it’s unconscionable for 600 million people in Africa to lack access to electricity in a place that is perfect for affordable, decentralized solar.

We nearly always begin with an economical, community owned, solar-plus-battery solution for an existing community building, school or health center. This serves many functions including demonstrating the real-world impact of the savings and reliability and freedom of distributed solar. Once the community experiences the liberation of power from the sun vs. the endless subjugation from the need to buy expensive and polluting fossil fuels, then exciting new ways of thinking start to emerge based around more sustainable and decentralized ideas.

Next we begin discussing and building holistic solar-powered solutions with the goal of increasing financial sovereignty and community resilience. This often includes procuring solar-powered appliances for microbusinesses, e.g., water pumps for smallholder farmers, electric pressure cookers for caterers, solar lanterns for anyone studying, reading or selling goods past sundown. It's exciting to see these solar-powered community hubs quickly evolve into gathering spaces for market days, training on computers or smartphones, facilitating new relationships and networks of trust, and sharing ideas for adapting to the increasingly dire impacts of climate disruption. As a cofounder of NEDA Labs, one of our partners in Tanzania, recently wrote:

"Community happens where the light is."

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The more I work with off-grid solar solutions, the more I believe that solar power can light the way, not only for a healthier, more affordable and safer future, but for a decentralized mindset that translates directly into new ways of seeing and being in the world. There is also much to learn from our work in Africa specifically around concepts such as mutual aid, savings groups, and collective stewardship, albeit these lessons require a different mindset and worldview than our typical Western philosophy.

As I think about the floods, hurricanes, wildfires, smoke and heat events increasingly harming my own community and/or those of my friends and family, I am often asking, where will we go when disaster strikes? Watching these escalating weather events coupled with increasing electricity costs, widening financial inequality and escalating political unrest drive the questions that swirl around me like gathering storm clouds:

Are we prepared? Where will we go? Are you prepared? Where will you go?

Lately I've begun to ask myself: What if we all had access to a neighborhood Community Resilience Hub?

Just imagine a global network of thriving neighborhoods built around Community Resilience Hubs rooted in energy independence and regenerative local economies. Community hubs where people can go when there’s extreme weather, or a blackout, or when you need a good conversation or a specific tool or help on DIY projects. 

This welcoming, intergenerational space is where we can learn valuable skills like how to create an urban garden, how to use portable solar, or how to retrofit your home to make it safer and more affordable to live in. There can be tool libraries, clothing and book exchanges, community meals, local business incubation—similar to our projects in Africa, we can start small and see what develops to meet the unique needs of each neighborhood.

What if this is the way we prepare today for the upheavals and volatility we know is coming, and in many places, is already here? What if this happens everywhere, and we create a network of supportive, resilient, locally led community hubs throughout the world exchanging ideas and support year round? If you are also thinking along these lines, drop me an email: coleen@solarfoundation.xyz.

Interested in learning more about Community Resilience Hubs? Here are some inspirational and informative resources:

• Resilience Hub Collaborative offers an online course and resources

• Screw This, Let’s Try Something Else podcast #4: Let’s Create a Neighborhood Fit for the Future (featuring Immy Kaur of Civic Square and Kate Raworth of Donut Economics)
• Daily Yonder Article: Weathering the Storm Together: Community Resiliency Hubs Hold the Promise of Local Self-Sufficiency & Supportive Mutual Aid.