Project Summary
Hagley Gap is a student organized, faculty advised project team that is under the larger umbrella organization of BLUElab. This village is located in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains and has about 5,000 community members, a large majority of whom are farmers. Due to its size, location, and the income level of its inhabitants, Hagley Gap gets little support from the government. A nonprofit organization, the Blue Mountain Project (BMP), was founded eleven years ago and has been dedicated to remedying these issues, among others.
The majority of community members in Hagley Gap are subsistence farmers. Each week, farmers rise in the early hours of the morning and make the over two hour trip down the mountain to Kingston to sell their crops at the market. The community often experiences a surplus in fruits (particularly mangoes), which results in piles of fruit being left to rot on the ground, Our vision for a large scale solar dehydrator originated from observations during trips and conversations with community members. We are working on scaling the initial dehydrator prototype for communitywide use. This technology would be incorporated as a business and be maintained by the community. Additionally, students at the local school will hopefully be able to use the solar dehydrator as a hands on learning experience about solar energy. One long term goal of this project is to incorporate a Maryland brewery into the business model as a source of income. BMP has made connections with this brewery, which could be a major purchaser of the dried fruit for use in their mango beer.