Conceived by a global community, SunRazors was created to bring solar power to the Mexican village of Mezquitic.

“The lack of electricity is one of the problems the developed world forgot about, but as an economist, I zoomed in on a demand for solar energy,” said Anna Ebers, a State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry graduate student.

Ebers founded SunRazors a year ago, with the goal of bringing solar electricity to rural areas in Mexico. She used past connections with a research institute in Germany to help get seven solar panels donated for the project. Currently, the group is raising funds with the hope of installing the first solar panels next summer.

“Sustainability is the future, that is if we want a future,” said Audrey Thompson, a freshman Syracuse University broadcast and digital journalism and international relations major, and a SunRazors intern.

It can be easy to forget how much of the world lives in abject poverty because so many people live in First World countries, where energy needs and clean water are taken for granted, Thompson said.

“Sustainability is equality for others,” she said.

By installing home solar panel systems, which include solar UV filters, water will be purified, and deaths and illness from waterborne diseases will be eliminated, said Tejal Kuray, an ESF natural resources management graduate student and an intern with SunRazors.

The first solar panels will go to powering Mezquitic’s medical center, which will also receive a solar fridge to hold antivenoms and medicines, Thompson said.

“Since the village is remote, the ability to respond to emergencies quickly holds the potential to save lives,” said Thompson.

The panels will decrease respiratory illness by replacing wood-burning stoves in homes, Ebers said, and when people are healthier, they can work more and help bring their families out of poverty.

The village doesn’t have its own high school, so the kids need good grades to attend the neighboring town’s school. When the panels get installed, the children can study in the evening to help improve their chances of getting in, Ebers said.

“Many people take electricity for granted in America and think the rest of the six billion people have it as well, but when it gets dark, they can’t do anything,” she said. “By giving them five more hours in a day, their quality of life will increase.”

In addition to the health and education benefits, SunRazors is helping to establish a women’s cooperative center to allow the women of the village to join together and sell their handicraft products to a global market, Kuray said.

Knowing they’ve helped bring electricity to their village will also help raise their self-value, she said.

Ebers plans to go to Mexico and do a study on how the panels have affected the lives of the villagers in hopes of inspiring other villages to look into sustainable energy. The panels should be installed next summer during the peak of Mexico’s sunlight.

Said Ebers: “I see it as a learning curve, one village for one year of work, but I’m down for electrifying the whole region.”

Published on September 17, 2012 at 12:41 am

Contact Tedi: tadoychi@syr.edu