At the crack of dawn every day, Phophi Mashau is up and readying herself to be at the local bakery in Gwakwani Village. For the last four years, she has assisted in ensuring that residents get freshly baked bread. Come sunrise, residents will be queuing up to buy bread, so she knows too well that hers is a task one cannot afford to falter.
Prior to 2018, the village had no grid connection, which meant that there was no electricity, while economic activity was limited. In 2017, the UJ Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Science in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment (FEBE), saw an opportunity to contribute to the economy of the area. The team, along with the community and various sponsors, designed a solar bakery, which provides the opportunity to bake bread off-grid. After 2018, when Gwakwani was connected to the grid, the bakery was upgraded to function in a hybrid capacity, which enabled the bakers to bake throughout the night. This was a necessity, given that the bakery has become one of the largest suppliers of freshly baked bread in the region.
It was on a wintry morning in August when the FEBE team from UJ presented the bakery to the wider UJ community during a tour of many of the projects the University has developed in the area. Mashau’s face lights up as she talks about her job. “The bread produced is baked by me,” she says proudly.
The village of Gwakwani is home to about 100 residents and the solar powered bakery is helping to feed them. Mashau works together with Takalani Netshavhakolo and Vuledzani Mathivha. “This bakery has helped us a lot. Before this we would have to wait a long time in order to receive bread. We could go for two to three months without eating bread. Now there are communities that rely on the Gwakwani bakery to supply them,” says Mashau.
About eight villages rely on the bakery for their daily bread. During the week, Mashau bakes up to 100 loaves of bread per day, depending on whether the bakeries in town will deliver. Through the UJ for Societal Impact initiative, the villagers now have new ways to feed their families.
“When the children are home during the weekend, we bake more according to the demand.” Mashau happily goes about her job, knowing that due to the contribution of the FEBE team and its sponsors, she is able to contribute to the economy of the area.
The solar-powered bakery, designed and brought into being through the hard work and dedication of the UJ FEBE team, was the start of a journey which would lead to many more initiatives.
The initiatives are meeting several UN SDG’s including SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) With the help of the UJ Research Connect team the village now has Wi-Fi access, solar lights to light the main street pathway, a solar bakery and recreational container where people can charge their phones, children can do their homework and search the internet. The team also replaced the diesel borehole pump with a solar borehole pump to ensure that the community has a consistent water supply.
Through this initiative households were supplied with lights, enabling the children of the village, who walk 6km to the nearest primary school and 14 km to the nearest high school to complete their homework at night. The youngest in the community are exposed to educational channels on television and the wider world has now been brought to Gwakwani, said Prof Johan Meyer. He added that the project demonstrated the endless possibilities when academia, industry and communities use technology to improve the lives of ordinary South Africans.
Watch the video of the UJ for Societal Impact project here:
