EmpowerPlaygrounds

Empower Playgrounds Incorporated (EPI) is a 501(c)3 public charity focused on improving education in rural Ghanaian villages by providing fun, light for nighttime studies, and hands-on science labs.

EPI designs electricity-generating play equipment and installs the equipment at rural public schools in Ghana. The equipment is built and maintained by Ghanaians.

As the children have fun playing, they turn an electrical generator. An underground cable transmits the power to a safe enclosure where it is stored in a large battery and later transferred to rechargeable LED lanterns. The children use the LED lanterns to study together in groups after dark.

In addition to night studies, the LED lanterns are used in dark school rooms to create a more effective learning environment and reduce eye strain.

Apart from play and light, EPI provides hands-on learning opportunities to children at EPI schools. EPI's science curriculum has been developed and the science kits are expected to arrive in Ghana in February 2010. The curriculum is designed to use the playground equipment itself, as well as other hands-on materials in the science kits, to teach children principles of energy transfer, physics, and mechanics.

EPI currently has nine electricity-generating merry-go-rounds and one electricity-generating swing set powering approximately 250 LED lanterns, installed at rural Ghanaian schools. There is also an electricity-generating zip-line prototype at the fabrication shop in Ghana.