"The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind"

(Source: thestar.com)

While scrolling through Facebook, I came across an article that a friend had shared with a large photo and a caption titled “Share this. Let’s make him famous because the media won’t”. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the article and was pleasantly surprised to find that it had links to irrigation in Malawi! Digging a little deeper into the topic, I found the story extremely inspiring and decided to share it as this week’s post.

The story begins in Wimbe, Malawi where William Kamkwamba and his family of nine lives. In 2001, widespread famine across rural parts of Malawi had devastating impacts for the entire population and at just the age of 14, William could no longer attend secondary school as his family was unable to pay the annual school fees (Menon, 2007).

However, William did not let this situation discourage him. He borrowed textbooks which taught him about electricity and motors and it gave him the inspiration to build a windmill to power his family’s home. By using all sorts of different materials he could lay his hands on, including a tractor fan blade and a bicycle frame, he managed to construct a windmill and use it to charge his neighbours’ mobile phones and light up four light bulbs (Williamkamkwamba.com). This was only the beginning for William and his windmill creations.

William later went on to build more windmills and his third one was used to supply greywater for irrigation. Successive projects have provided “clean water, malaria prevention, solar power and lighting and drip irrigation” (Williamkamkwamba.com).

News spread about William’s invention and he was subsequently invited to speak at a TED conference in Tanzania (Childress, 2007). You can watch his TED talks below:

William Kamkwamba: How I Built A Windmill:

Catching up with inventor William Kamkwamba : 

Since then, William graduated in 2014 from Dartmouth College is currently working on various projects around the world. He founded an organisation called “Moving Windmills” in 2008 which develops programs with aims to improve education and rural economic development in Malawi. William has also written a book titled “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”, talking about his story of how he got to where he is today.

William’s story just goes to show that with dedication and perseverance, it is possible to take bad situations and use them in your favour. The famine did not cause him to give up on his education. Instead, he went and used it as his motivation to create windmills to power pumps for irrigation. No fancy materials or machinery is needed, just some education and a motive. A little education goes a long way and perhaps if more people were to follow in William’s footsteps, would top-down approaches still be needed?