Hi, I’m Karana Olivier. We’re raising $26,000 to equip and train a local team to build low-cost wind turbines from recycled and repurposed materials, bringing clean energy to off-grid villages in northern Côte d’Ivoire that are hosts to the recent influx of tens of thousands of refugees from the war-ravaged countries of Burkina Faso and Mali.

Bringing Clean Energy & Power Entrepreneurship to Off-Grid Communities

For years, I have worked alongside communities with little or no access to electricity, where families rely on candles, kerosene, and long walks to charge essential devices. These villages have talent, vision, and determination — what they lack is the power needed to unlock opportunity.

We’re raising $26,000 to change that by creating a locally run workshop that produces low-cost wind turbines using repurposed construction wood, salvaged industrial sifting magnets, and recycled metal from decommissioned communication towers—while training women and youth to become power entrepreneurs who can build, repair, and scale this technology within their own communities.

This is not charity.

This is resilience through power entrepreneurship.

⭐ Why This Matters

Access to electricity transforms lives:

Why not solar?

Solar is the future for most of the world, but in many rural or at-risk regions, commercial solar companies and utilities simply do not invest. The costs are too high, the infrastructure too weak, or the region considered “too remote.”

That’s where local innovation becomes the solution.

⭐ Our Approach: Local Skills, Local Materials, Local Resilience

Our wind turbines cost only $200–$250 because we source recycled materials — scrap metal, repurposed motors, reused plastics, and recovered electronics. Every component can be built, repaired, or replaced locally.

With your support, we will:

✔ Equip a community workshop with tools, safety equipment, molds, jigs, and materials to begin production.

✔ Train a team of youth and artisans with hands-on instruction in turbine building, maintenance, electrical systems, and entrepreneurship, and

✔ Produce low-cost wind turbines at scale to serve households, women’s groups, cooperatives, or community charging hubs.

✔ Build a model that communities own, thus removing dependence on outside technicians.

No expensive imports. Just local capacity and a reliable source of clean power. This is clean energy built by the community, for the community.

⭐ What Your Support Makes Possible

Your contribution helps launch the entire workshop — a hub capable of producing dozens of turbines a year.

$50 – Training supplies

$100 – Tools for youth apprentices

$250 – One complete low-cost turbine

$500 – One week of artisan training

$1,000 – Workshop equipment and fabrication tools

$5,000 – Support for the full training cycle

$26,000 – Launch the workshop that powers communities for years

Every dollar builds skills, builds resilience, and builds the ability for communities to power themselves.

⭐ Why This Project Is Different

This is not about installing one turbine and leaving.

This is about:

When communities build their own systems, they protect them, expand them, and teach the next generation.

This is resilience from the inside out.

⭐ Join Us

Your support helps launch a model that can be replicated across regions — a movement where communities meet their own energy needs using creativity, recycled materials, and local skill.

If you’re moved by clean energy, women’s empowerment, youth training, recycling, community resilience, or innovative solutions to energy poverty — this project touches all of those.

Thank you for supporting resilience through power entrepreneurship.

Let’s build this workshop and light up communities together.

— Karana Olivier, Director and Founder of KOC Bridges to Peace