Edinburgh Hotel Helps Deliver Life Support to Colombia’s Poor

Ross Hornsey, December 9, 2009

Country: Colombia

Topics: Climate Change, Economic Development, Environment

Top Edinburgh hotel Ten Hill Place, which is owned by the city’s Royal College of Surgeons, has partnered with Mercy Corps to launch a new initiative aimed at powering essential healthcare services for a remote Colombian village, whilst also reducing its’ own CO2 emissions.

The initiative aims to build a micro-hydro renewable energy facility in Minaflores, a remote community of indigenous families nestled deep within Colombia’s mountainous interior. Harnessing the power of a 62 metre waterfall, the facility would deliver enough clean, cheap, reliable energy to safely store life-saving medicines and vaccines while reducing local energy dependence on the use of diesel and kerosene.

Minaflores is a 5 hour hike from the nearest health clinic. It has no source of electricity and no prospect of being connected to Colombia’s national grid. Currently the village gets by using one gasoline generator for emergencies and local midwives are forced to rely on candles and kerosene lamps, severely increasing the risk of complications during night-time childbirths.

The project would further transform villagers’ lives by allowing them to install electric lighting and cooking facilities and also have mobile telephones for emergencies. Ten Hill Place hopes to raise £33,000 for the project from a discretionary £1 charge per night; a sum which represents the cost of each guest’s carbon emissions.

View details of the carbon-offsetting partnership we have with this Edinburgh hotel.

View the hotel’s carbon-offsetting scheme.