Power Up Gambia is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

-based non-profit health care and environmental group that works in The Gambia

The Gambia

The Republic of The Gambia, commonly referred to as The Gambia, or Gambia , is a country in West Africa. Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa, surrounded by Senegal except for a short coastline on the Atlantic Ocean in the west....

, in West Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

. It was founded in 2006 by Kathryn Cunningham Hall, then a University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

undergraduate.

The organization's goal is to provide reliable electricity to health care facilities throughout The Gambia. They do so through the installation of solar panel systems and battery storage systems, providing power throughout the day.

History

Power Up Gambia was founded in 2006 by Kathryn Cunningham Hall, an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. While traveling to Sulayman Junkung General Hospital in The Gambia, she saw the consequences of limited electricity for Gambian patients. She founded Power Up Gambia, which installed a solar system at that hospital. Since then, the group has grown and has completed a solar panel installation at a village clinic, Somita Community Clinic. PUG is looking to expand its operations beyond the Philadelphia area as it prepares for an installation at Bansang Hospital, one of the largest in The Gambia.

Projects

• Sulayman Junkung General Hospital: Completed in 2009
• Somita Community Clinic: Completed in 2010
• Bansang Hospital: Currently Underway, Completion Estimated in 2011