Under the sweeping Southwestern skies, only a few dim lights illuminate the land at nightfall in the Navajo Nation. Here, more than 18,000 rural Navajo families are without access to electricity. Residents rely on dirty-burning, dangerous, and expensive kerosene lanterns for light.
Worldwide, approximately 1.5 billion people have no access to electricity and an additional 1 billion have unreliable access to electricity networks. In 2011, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and global leaders called for the world to meet a goal of “universal access to clean, affordable energy by 2030.” The United Nations’ concentration on clean energy was important for Beth Osnes, CU-Boulder assistant professor of theatre and dance, whose concern centers on the not-so-distant Navajo Nation, a large Native American territory located throughout New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.
With help from a CU-Boulder Outreach Award, Osnes is collaborating with Sarah Krakoff, CU-Boulder associate professor of law; CU-Boulder students; nonprofit Eagle Energy; and Navajo leaders to focus their energies on developing entrepreneurial models of sustainable electricity and business to the tribal nation.
The Navajo Access to Clean Energy project continues the preliminary research of Eagle Energy, a subsidiary of the nonprofit Elephant Energy, which has examined appropriate sustainable energy technologies in Namibia and the Navajo Nation.
“We can partner with the Navajo communities to leapfrog the coal-dependent grid by making solar energy technology accessible,” Osnes says. “This interdisciplinary project brings together allies from CU-Boulder’s business school, law school, and theater department to create an effective social and entrepreneurial model.”
The project has three goals in working towards providing clean energy access for rural Navajo families. First, Krakoff and CU law students will identify and address legal issues surrounding the distribution of solar lights with partners in the community and with tribunal governances. Next, Osnes and CU Performers Without Borders students will collaborate with the local schools to engage Navajo youth using theatre as a tool to increase education and awareness of appropriate sustainable energy technologies. Among the demonstrations, the Performers Without Borders students will use a solar power-lit puppet show to educate youth, and the Navajo students will contribute stories and content to enhance the cultural appropriateness of the performance.
A third goal involves creation of the Women’s Energy Project, an effort to inspire rural Navajo women to be leaders in sustainable development and energy ambassadors in their communities. This part of the project will model Eagle Energy’s efforts with women in Namibia, where interactive theatre techniques have been established as an effective tool for achieving these goals.
“I’ll use interactive theatre to work with people in the Navajo Nation, especially women, to raise awareness and explore how various distribution models can work on the ground,” Osnes says.