Moving Windmills

I found this charitable organization Moving Windmills started by William Kamkwamba that helps rural economic and educational development in Malawi. Kamkwamba built his own windmill in Malawi after reading about windmills from a textbook from a local library. William Kamkwamba is from a small rural village in Malawi and was forced to drop out from school at fourteen because of financial difficulties. After building the initial windmill he has gone on to build several other windmills for his village as well as installing solar panels, building a solar powered well, and numerous other projects. The charity works towards local sustainable development, increasing educational opportunities for local youth through both increasing the size of the local library and by providing scholarships for secondary school, malaria prevention through bed net distribution, increased access to water through building wells and installing free running water taps, and agricultural projects such as installing a drip irrigation system. The only project that I felt did not fit as green was the distribution of fertilizer and urea, which the website states increased crop yield threefold, while ignoring the actual cost of the fertilizer and the fact that using fertilizer bought with charitable funds creates a dependent relationship with the people donating to the charitable organization and degrades the soil over time. This project does not seem to fit with the rest of the projects which are concerned with creating an independent sustainable livelihood for the people. Here is the website: http://movingwindmills.org/. In addition to information on the charitable organization there is also information on a book about William Kamkwamba called The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind and a documentary called Moving Windmills: The William Kamkwamba Story.