Meet the ASV Green Team 2016 students and interns having fun learning while working at Africa House International (AHI), a grassroots non profit Learning Center. The AHI’s Africa House youth gardening programs are designed to inspire and empower “Youth Placed at Risk,” to become leaders through gardening and environmental stewardship. The project was inspired by the work of the late Dr. Willie R. Mackey, an African American physicist who worked at NASA for 13 years while maintaining an active engagement in the community. Dr. Mackey solarized a village in Africa and brought that knowledge to inner city youth in the form of his African Solar Village Outreach Project (ASVOP). His innovative STEAM initiative brought knowledge of solar energy, math and traditional African culture to Cleveland’s inner city. Today the ASVOP lives on as the ASVGreen Project and is a major part of the educational program offered through AfricaHouse International.

ASVGreen project is the first effort to rebuild the solar projects that were started by Dr. Mackey. Much of Dr. Mackey’s groundbreaking work remains unfinished due to his untimely death.

The organization is seeking funds to strengthen the solar education component by providing more solar education training to the staff and students of the ASVGreen project and by including experiential learning such as installing permanent solar displays. ASVGreen Project participants will also work to alleviate the current pvc solar hut structure and replace it with a permanent, safer and more efficient wood structure that will be used as a shelter and solar display.