Greenstar builds solar-powered community centres in villages in the developing world and provides them with electricity, pure water, health and education information, and a wireless Internet connection. The aim of these centres is to foster an ongoing community-driven process of literacy, local business, and environmental and public health programmes. Greenstar also records traditional art, music, photography, legends, and storytelling in traditional communities and, in an effort to connect these people to each other and to the global community, brings their products to global markets. Revenues are returned to the villages.
Communication Strategies: 

Using solar power generated by large photovoltaic panels, Greenstar drives a water purifier, a small clinic, a vaccine cooler, a classroom, a digital studio, and a satellite or wireless link to the Internet. Greenstar works with the people of each village, who have been trained by a professional who is sent in once a month. Local volunteers, like members of computer clubs from cities in the region, are recruited to help with support, local language packages, installation of software, and training. An e-commerce website is developed that employs local musicians, teachers, and art professionals. Greenstar packages the materials for various markets, but villagers own the Greenstar Village Center and become shareholders in Greenstar.


Digital products available direct to the Internet consumer from the Greenstar World Gallery include music, paintings and drawings, photographs, video, poetry and stories, and new art forms such as animated panoramas. These products are also licensed by businesses as "digital premiums" to communicate with customers and motivate their participation in a wide range of "green" programmes, including alternative energy, textiles and clothing, and interactive entertainment. An electronic newsletter is also available.


To date, Greenstar has completed pilot installations in a remote Bedouin settlement on the West Bank in the Middle East; in a small community in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica; in the central India village of Parvatapur; and in a traditional Ashanti community in Ghana. Launches are planned in New Mexico, Brazil, and Tibet, as well as in over 60 other communities worldwide.


Greenstar's "Tools for Independence" exhibit at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa featured solar power; digital culture; "the Navajo Voice" (a new programme initiated by Sandia National Laboratory and Greenstar that brings tools and techniques used in the developing world to traditional communities within the United States); health education (one portion of which focuses on youth and technology); solar and hand-crank radio; satellite-phone Internet; solar water pasteuriser; language education; solar oven; cooling pots; and satellite radio.

Development Issues: 

Technology, Economic Development, Health Overseas Development Assistance.

Key Points: 

Greenstar was founded in 1998. The company maintains a small de-centralised network of offices in Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, DC, Cairo, and Hyderabad, India. Greenstar launched its first African investment in August 2001 in the Ashanti village of Patriensah, Ghana. For that effort, Greenstar partnered with GhaCLAD (Ghana Computer Literacy and Distance learning), and the Asante Akim Multipurpose Community Telecenter Committee.

Partner Text: 

Astropower; Xantrex; Sandia National Laboratory; Freeplay Foundation of South Africa; Nomad; Safe Water Systems of Hawaii; Ohana Foundation of California; Sun Ovens International of Illinois; Approtec of Kenya; WorldSpace.

Source: 

Greenstar site; and letter sent from Susan Older to The Communication Initiative September 3, 2002.