ADRA’s GLOW project empowers Syrian women farmers with mobile solar units, enabling sustainable irrigation, land restoration, and improved livelihoods.
When Kleema and her family returned to their home in Syria, the agricultural land where they had previously grown grapes, apples, and apricots was barren and devoid of all plants. They needed abundant water to get things green and productive again and ADRA's training for renewable agriculture came at just the right time.
Kleena explains that when ADRA announced the training opportunity, she joined the “Mobile Solar Units” initiative and was chosen to manage the solar unit that would help 7 farmers irrigate their lands regularly.
“I took on managing the initiative,” she says, “because I am active in agricultural work. We are currently cultivating the land with seasonal crops. My husband and I follow up on it, and we have a water well and a pump on the land. Therefore, we only need energy to extract irrigation water, which we use to water the lands of all participants in the initiative.”
This initiative is part of the Growth and Livelihood Opportunities for Women project (GLOW) which focuses on empowering women and young girls to actively participate in local recovery, decision-making processes, and climate action through agriculture-based training and livelihood inputs in Homs, Syria.
As part of the project’s activities, 14 mobile solar units with accessories support a total of 100 beneficiaries. Each solar unit serves seven farmers, enabling them to operate their water systems for one full day per week.
The GLOW project brings essential change to the farmers’ life. The initiative enables water pumping for existing water well pumps. These mobile systems convert abundant sunlight into clean, reliable energy to power water pumps, liberating farmers from costly and unreliable diesel fuel dependence and backbreaking labor.
Kleena looks forward to restoring their land, expressing excitement that it will “become green again, full of delicious crops, and to be a source of livelihood for me and my large family”. She is grateful to ADRA “for the Mobile Solar Units [that] have helped a large group of people by providing irrigation water for the land, reducing dependence on fuel and its high costs, and offering flexibility in use, as they can be easily moved between fields as needed."
By Miriam Watt, ADRA Syria