Monday, October 1, 2012

Tough Stuff


The social enterprise Tough Stuff produces solar powered solutions for those who live without electricity. In Madagascar that means 90% of the households, including many in the cities.

The company's Chief Technical guy is a Dutch guy named Adriaan Mol (not the one from the children's books :-) who used to live in Madagascar.

I puchased the litlle light recently, to try it out. It comes with a small solar pad to be put in the sun for 8 hours, et voila...free power.

They say the Tough Stuff is 'incassable', indistructable Had to see that for myself. So...
  1. we tried to break it with a hammer
  2. I rolled over it with my car
  3. I made a serious effort to drown it. 
And guess what?


It's true! After being mistreated for an entire morning, Tough Stuff keeps shining like never before. 


Took a while to convince our gardener...but he tried!



A scratch on the back is the only damage.

Tyre marks still on it...


Drown baby, drown...



Rise and shine!

P.s. I recently bought a Nixon Coolpix AW 100 that is supposed to be waterproof, shock proof, bush proof, freezeproof, sandproof. I am tempted.



6 comments:

  1. Tough Stuff could be featured on the TV show Mythbusters.

    A Malagasy reader

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  2. Curious if this is affordable to 90% of Malagasy households? Olivier

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  3. Good question! The pad plus light are widely for sale for 35,000 Ariary (if I remember well) which is 12 Euro. This is pretty expensive but definately not unaffordable - specially considering the cost savings people can have on the medium/long term. The issue is however that many rural people are a little reluctant to change or innovation...so I am afraid it has not reached 90% of people yet. Time will tell...

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  4. so very cool!!! we are totally getting some of those!
    Corinne

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  5. Dear Susanne

    Thanks very much for showing us this light.

    But how much did it cost and where can we get in Zimbabwe. I am
    asking cause it looks like its a quality light. Electricity is a
    problem I dont' about yours that side.

    Even water is a problem now in Bulawayo because of the rains.


    Cheers


    Sheila

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  6. Hi...this is rajaram from Solarway. We are planning to enter Madagascar with our solar lights and mobile chargers...could you suggest any strong distributors to reach rural people...regards/raj rajaram (at) Solarway (dot) com

    ReplyDelete