Help bring light to Deki communities in 2021, by supporting their clean energy enterprise project.
We’re proud to be supporting Deki again this year in their campaign to bring clean energy to rural communities in Togo. Deki are a Bristol-based charity, who we have worked for the past 3 years and our founder, Steve Garratt, sits on the board of trustees for the charity. Deki provides access to ethical micro-loans, alongside business and community development training for communities in Togo.
During the past year, Deki has developed The Clean Energy Enterprise Project to help improve the lives of the Togolese people by providing them with access to clean, renewable energy. In Togo, over one million households are completely without power and in the rural communities that Deki supports, eight out of ten households live without access to energy. This makes the poverty in areas worse, as the workday ends when the sun sets. Many families have little option, but to resort to burning biomass fuels; Kerosene, firewood, charcoal, dung, crop residue. Not only are these energy sources expensive, but they often fail to burn effectively, leading to the emission of harmful pollutants such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide. Exposure like this to indoor air pollution has been linked to many diseases, in particular, pneumonia among children and chronic respiratory diseases among adults, one of the four main causes of death in Togo. According to WHO, in 2016, there were over 8,000 premature deaths in Togo alone, attributable to ambient and household air pollution exposure and yet still 93% of the population use biomass fuels for cooking. In addition, the cost of running a lamp or using these fuels for cooking is up to 4 times as much as electricity and comes with the added risks of house fires.
Deki are raising money for Akadi; clean energy enterprise, so they can give families credit which will enable them to purchase solar lights and energy-efficient cookstoves. The cookstoves are designed to burn biomass fuel more efficiently and therefore reduce the fuel used in cooking and reduce harmful emissions by up to 70%. The families will have to option to purchase one small light which will provide light after dark and one larger lamp that charges more quickly and also charges devices such as mobile phones.
The script was written by Steve to work without a voiceover as the video will predominantly be used on social media. It was essential that the whole narrative worked from the pictures alone. The design was created by our newest talented digital artist, Sophie, under the watchful eye of our senior designer, Iina. Sophie created style frames that matched Deki’s colour palette and brand guidelines and used images of villages in Deki to create a realistic backdrop. The animation used 2.5d animation, which combines flat 2d layers and stacks them against one another to create a 3d effect. This helped us to add depth to the animation whilst still giving the animation a simple yet beautiful style. We also used a Wacom Cintiq to digitally paint the scenes and to give the animation a vibrant style.
This is the first in a series of animations that we will be creating for Deki over the next year. In previous years we have supported Deki on a number of campaigns. One of these was their Christmas Advent Calendar campaign which involved creating animated short videos for a prize giveaway taking place on each day in December. Then we told the story of Afi, one of Deki’s many successful entrepreneurs, and how the Deki loan helped her and her family.
To support Deki’s Clean Energy campaign, click here.
If you are interested in creating a showstopping animation like this, or any other creative projects please call us on 0117 972 0081 or email jon@studiogiggle.co.uk
