SOLAR SISTER | SISTER TO SISTER. STOVE BY STOVE.

Fatma Hodari is a mother of four and a Solar Sister entrepreneur in Mforo village, Tanzania. For six months she has owned and run her own business selling solar lights and clean cook stoves to her neighbors and community to provide access to clean energy and to improve the health and livelihoods of her neighbors. She has become a leader and part of a sisterhood of clean energy entrepreneurs bringing safe cookstoves to their communities.

Runtime: 05:02

"Andrew was delightful and a natural collaborator. From the very first, he took direction with grace and consideration, always doing what was best for the project. He instantly fit in with the rest of the team and worked well on location. In the end, Andrew was an invaluable part of the finished film, and we at Ripple are excited to work with him on projects in the future."

– Annie Griffiths, Executive Director, Ripple Effect Images

CREDITS

Director: Andrew Hida
Cinematographer: Andrew Hida
Editor: Andrew Hida
Music: Boris Nonte, Gregg Lehrman, MP Soundcraft, Mark Russell
Photography: Joanna Pinneo
Field Assistant and Translations: John Nyallu
Field Producer: Fatma Muzo, Solar Sister
Producer: Annie Griffiths, Ripple Effect Images

Client: Ripple Effect Images for Solar Sister
Services Provided: Directing, Cinematography, Foreign Language Editing
Publication Date: February 17, 2016

BACKGROUND

Three billion people in the world rely on traditional cookstoves to cook their daily meals – stoves that require large quantities of solid fuels, like wood and charcoal. Toxic smoke from cooking fires causes more than four million deaths per year and is the single leading cause of death for women and for children under age five in the developing world. The World Health Organization estimates that smoke-related illnesses kill more people each year than malaria or tuberculosis. The problem is especially acute in rural Africa, where more than 80% of the population uses traditional stoves.

BRIEF

Solar Sister is an American NGO transforming the landscape of clean energy access by empowering over 2000 entrepreneurs in Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda to sell solar powered lanterns and clean cookstoves to their communities. Solar Sister wanted to tell a passionate, character-driven story to highlight the critical role of the entrepreneurs in distributing this technology to their communities and in changing the status quo for women in rural Africa while creating economic opportunities for themselves.

CHALLENGES AND RESULT

We invested a week in the field with two entrepreneurs, Julieth Mollel in Arusha, and Fatma Hodari in Moshi, in Northern Tanzania. We dove deep into their personal stories to get to the heart of their dedication to this grueling and challenging work that is driving a clean energy revolution.

Dust, smoke and heat proved to be logistical challenges in the field. The remote locations also provided logistical challenges in access to power and transportation, further underlining the real issues facing these communities that we were striving to illustrate.

Sister to Sister. Stove by Stove. is a a 5-minute character-driven short film featuring Fatma Hodari’s passionate story of empowerment. The film was published in February 2016 to showcase the power of women entrepreneurs and to coincide with Solar Sister's clean cookstove month.