Photo: Thomson Reuters Foundation | Menna A. Farouk
A decade ago, Makthar boarding school in northern Tunisia had little clean drinking water or heat, poor food and no electricity for its 570 students. Today, they study in classrooms that are warm even during the town's bitter winters, with lights to enable them to work at night. Lotfi Hamadi, who grew up in France and moved to Canada but returned to Tunisia after the 2011 revolution, bought 50 solar water heaters and photovoltaic panels capable of producing 45,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh). Some power is shared with three nearby schools and some is sold to Tunisia's national power grid, generating about 6,000 dinars ($1,915) a year in income. It is part of a broader green push that includes an 8-hectare (20-acre) farm that provides vegetables to the school and jobs for a half-dozen previously unemployed parents of students. Excess produce is sold at market in Tunis to raise additional money for the school.
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