Three communities in the Upper East Region – Gbango and Tarikome in Bawku West, as well as Dalaasa in the Builsa South districts, which have existed for decades without electricity, have been provided with solar mobile phone charging centers.
Prior to this, mobile phone usage, often considered a luxury, was nearly unattainable for residents due to the lack of electricity.
The communities have long faced significant challenges in accessing basic services like phone charging.
Residents of Gbango, despite having electrical poles and a transformer erected since 2016, are still not connected to the national grid. Alembile Abel, the assemblyman for Gbango, lamented that:
“Residents had to travel to Binaba, incurring a cost of 16 cedis on transportation and 2 cedis per charging session anytime they want to charge their phone.”
In Tarikom and Dalaasa, the situation was even more dire. Without any electrical poles, the communities had no prospect of connecting to the national grid.
“We have to travel about 15 kilometers to the district capital, Zebilla, to charge our phones,” the Assemblyman for Tarikom, Azaase Godfred, lamented.
However, the predicament of these community members is now over as a project known as the “Creating Lands of Opportunity: Transforming Livelihoods through Landscape Restoration in the Sahel (LoGMe)” has constructed and handed over solar phone charging centers to the communities, with each center designed to charge 20 mobile phones at a time.
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