August 5: Birthday of William Kamkwamba (1987)
Prayer Idea
Pray for the people and government of Malawi and for the work of Moving Windmills.
Map by Peter Hermes Furian / Shutterstock.com.
History Note
Malawi is a small, landlocked country in southeastern Africa. Most of its 22 million people live as subsistence farmers. About 78 percent of Malawians belong to a Christian denomination and about 14 percent are Muslim. Many people also believe in magic, wizards, and other elements of folk religion.
William Kamkwamba was born in 1987 in the village of Wimbe, near the town of Kasungu. His father was a typical farmer eking out a living. William’s father had become a Christian after living a rough life earlier. One day William’s father told him, “Respect the wizards, my son, but always remember, with God on your side, they have no power.”
William was inquisitive and resourceful as a child. One day he saw a dynamo powered by a bicycle that generated electricity, and this intrigued him. William attended primary school, but he had to drop out of secondary school because his family could not afford the $80 annual tuition. William was still eager to learn, however, so he began to visit the small village library housed in the primary school. It had three shelves of books, mostly used American textbooks.
On the cover of an eighth grade science book, Using Energy, was a picture of windmills. William was enthralled. William didn’t know English well, even though English is one of the official languages of Malawi (it was a British colony before 1964). He studied diagrams in the book and let them teach him what the English text said. He realized that a windmill could generate electricity like the bicycle did with the dynamo. A windmill could also operate a well pump to provide irrigation for crops.
William was able to obtain a dynamo, and he gathered other parts from the village junkyard. Many people in his village thought he was crazy. His windmill stood about 16 feet high and generated enough electricity to power one light bulb in his family’s house. William was 14 years old.
After William improved his original windmill to make it able to generate more electricity, people started showing up to charge their cell phones rather than go to the nearby marketplace. Later he built a water pump for irrigating the fields in his village.
A worker with an education agency in Malawi learned about William’s work and arranged for Malawian national radio to interview William. Then newspaper reporters starting coming. William was invited to speak at the TEDGlobal Conference in Tanzania in 2007. Later he gave another TEDTalk.
Word about William and his windmill spread around the world. He received financial assistance to attend African Bible College Christian Academy in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, and the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa. Before going to Johannesburg, William received assistance to attend an English intensive course at Cambridge University in England. He then enrolled in Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and graduated in 2014.
William Kamkwamba has been invited to speak in several countries and has worked on projects around the world. The Wall Street Journal published a profile of him. His inventions have been on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. He and Bryan Mealer published a book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, in 2009. This was the basis for a 2019 dramatic film by the same name.
William and his wife, Olivia, now help lead the nonprofit organization Moving Windmills. They work with local leaders and individual farmers in Malawi to build a better future. The organization builds low-cost water wells, installs solar-powered pumps and energy systems, provides schools with new facilities and learning materials, and supports community development programs. Moving Windmills is also creating an Innovation Center to provide young people with tools and mentorship to help them create solutions to problems facing their country.
William and his windmill in 2007. Photo by Tom Rielly.
Learn More
In this video, William and Olivia Kamkwamba and members of their team discuss challenges and opportunities in Malawi.
Find William’s original TED talk and more resources at Homeschool History.
