Flame Tree Initiative

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

The Flame Tree Initiative (FTI) fosters scalable, socially-minded businesses to accelerate change. We assist renewable energy companies, NGOs, government (national and local), foundations and others to evaluate the capacity of villages to adopt distributed renewable anergy (DRI) and create demand using productive uses of renewable energy (PURE). FTI empowers aspiring social entrepreneurs with the skills and knowledge to launch and grow development-focused innovations. This is achieved through our flagship programs, DELab and DEStudio, along with growth acceleration initiatives and consultancy services. We specialize in linking social entrepreneurship with Malawi’s need for distributed electrical energy through the Productive Use of Renewable Energy (PURE). Currently committed to fostering off-grid energy self-sufficiency in Malawi where merely 11% of the population has access to the national electric grid, and traditional subsistence farming methods have proven unsustainable.

Lilly graduated from the Flame Tree Initiative DELab in March 2019. She is now a DEStudio Member and is working to scale Angelstone, where she supports youth and women smallholder farmers.

The women of Chitiipi COMSIP. Chitipi COMSIP is a women-led farm cooperative providing financial production resources to farmers so that they can gain financial independence, social capital, and the confidence to know they can succeed. Its founder, Barbara Banda, attended two sessions of Flame Tree Initiative's Development Entrepreneur Lab in 2015 and 2016.

Hastings Mkandawire participated in our Development Entrepreneurship Lab back in 2015. Today, he runs a microhydro electric generation enterprise and is expanding his efforts to other valleys in Northern Malawi. With only 11% of Malawi's population having access to electricity, Hastings' social enterprise provides a much-needed solution to one of the country's greatest development challenges.

Trinitas Mhango participated in Flame Tree Initiative’s Development Entrepreneurship Lab in 2016. Her social enterprise, Tina Pads, supports adolescent girls in Malawi to stay in school by delivering reproductive health education and reusable sanitary pads. Here, she is with young girls from Blantyre who were grateful and excited to receive pad packs from Tina Pads.

On-site at Tione Kaonga’s first aquaculture pond in southern Malawi. These two men dug the aquaculture pond by hand. Tione participated in Flame Tree Initiative’s Development Entrepreneurship Lab in 2015 and now successfully operates multiple ponds.