We Care Solar Suitcase
MLC Vanguard | Created by We Care Solar
The award-winning We Care Solar Suitcase® is a robust, easy-to-use solar electric system that provides last-mile health facilities with efficient medical lighting and power for mobile communication and small medical devices. Designed to support emergency obstetric care, it also can be used in a range of medical and humanitarian settings.
8,430,890 Lives Impacted
Medical care and health worker morale significantly improve when Solar Suitcases are introduced to health centers lacking light and reliable electricity. Health workers can readily assess patients, conduct routine and emergency procedures, and institute infection control, monitor patients throughout the night. The fetal Doppler allows health workers to assess fetal well-being and detect distress. Phone charging ensures that emergency referrals happen when needed.
A multi-intervention trial of Solar Suitcases in Uganda showed an 80% increase in night-time deliveries, a 50% decrease in maternal mortality and a 63% decrease in perinatal deaths. Evaluations in Nigeria and Tanzania demonstrated similar findings.
Solar Suitcases have immediate utility in crisis settings as well. Hundreds of Solar Suitcases have been deployed after natural disasters in the Philippines, Nepal, and Haiti to provide critical medical lighting and essential power in mobile settings, tent clinics, and a range of health facilities.
As COVID-19 spreads, the Solar Suitcase offers important benefits for frontline healthcare workers triaging patients and enforcing infection control protocols.
The Innovation
Over 1 million babies and close to 300,000 women lose their lives each year from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Most of these deaths could be prevented with access to timely, emergency obstetric care. Yet health facilities throughout Africa lack a basic resource to prevent deaths in childbirth: reliable electricity.
The Solar Suitcase is the only portable, institutional-grade renewable power source designed to provide the first 100 watts of electricity to maternal health centers. This rugged 12-volt DC solar electric system pairs the highest-quality solar equipment with energy-efficient accessories – medical lights, phone chargers, a fetal heart rate monitor, and for COVID-19, a no-touch infrared thermometer and face masks. Designed for remote medical institutions, the Solar Suitcase is constructed to be durable, easy to install, simple to use, break-resistant, and easily maintained.
Emergency obstetric care improves significantly when Solar Suitcases are installed in un-electrified health centers. With the Solar Suitcase, midwives and doctors can identify pregnancy complications and conduct routine and emergency obstetric care without delay.
Implemented in
20 countries across Africa and Asia
Get in touch
Laura Stachel, Executive Director and Co-Founder
About We Care Solar
We Care Solar works at the nexus of energy and health. We launched our “Light Every Birth” initiative to ensure that every woman has access to clean, reliable electricity for safe childbirth. We Care Solar programs improve life chances for women, children, and their families in areas of Asia and Africa with high maternal and neonatal mortality rates and low rates of energy access. Our technology—The We Care Solar Suitcase®—provides last mile health centers with reliable power for medical lighting, emergency communication and medical devices. The Solar Suitcase enables energy-deficient health centers to facilitate timely, safe, and appropriate emergency obstetric care. We build capacity with local technicians in solar installation, usage and maintenance to ensure maximum effectiveness.
