Gaspar Makale

While working with KSTF, Gaspar Makale installed numerous solar systems in local schools, hospitals, clinic refrigeration systems, two-way radio systems, domestic lighting systems. He also installed systems in the refugee camps that sprung up in Karagwe after the Rwanda genocide in 1994. He made one trip to the USA where he attended solar and wind energy courses at Solar Energy International in Colorado, USA. He also ran a solar-powered disco in his own village where he lived with his family on a small farm.

KSTF, the first dedicated training centre for solar energy technology in the African Great Lakes, was founded by Oswald Kasazi in 1993. During the following decade KSTF gave regular three-week-long training courses which were attended by people from all over the African Great Lakes region (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda), as well as from further afield. The courses were held in partnership with Alternative Energy Africa (EAA), run by Mark Hankins and Daniel Kithokoi, who were based in Nairobi, Kenya. Gaspar Makale managed the practical sessions as well as arranging for the field-trips during which course participants installed solar electric domestic systems in the Karagwe district.

Gaspar Makale also worked closely with Harold Burris of Solar Shamba, one of the very first people to see the potential of solar electricity in the African Great Lakes, and with Frank Jackson from APSO (the Irish state overseas development agency), who worked at KSTF during the 1990s.

Gaspar Makale (1960 circa. to December 2007, Tanzania) was one of the pioneers of solar electrification in the African Great Lakes. During the 1990s, he was the Chief Solar Technician at the KARADEA Solar Training Facility (KSTF) in Karagwe district, Kagera region in Northern Tanzania, situated between Lake Victoria and Rwanda.