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Congo nun overcomes blackouts with homemade hydroelectric plant

Congolese nun and electrical engineer Alfonsine Ciza attends to the general circuit breaker at her micro-hydro power plant that provides electricity to a convent, schools and a health centre in Miti near Bukavu South Kivu in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo April 12, 2022. [Reuters]

Sister Alphonsine Ciza spends most of her day in gumboots, a white veil tucked under a builder's hat, manning the micro-hydroelectric plant she built to overcome daily electricity cuts in her town of Miti in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

She works around the clock with a team of nuns and engineers, greasing machinery and checking the dials of a generator that is fed from a nearby reservoir and lights up a convent, church, two schools and a clinic free of charge.

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