"The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind"

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With a few scraps that he scrounged from junk piles, a Malawian teen named William Kamkwamba built a windmill (one of the things he used was a pair of flip flops!) brought electricity and water to his village. This kid had to drop out of school because his family could not afford the $80-a-year tuition. He learned how to make the windmill from books in the local library (the books were in English and his English was not even very good at the time!) The people in his village called him "misala" crazy, but when he attached a bulb and it lit up, his fellow villagers cheered. He has certainly lit up my world and I hope he does yours too.

BBC News tells the story better than I can here.

I first saw this remarkable person on Good Morning America, an interview with Diane Sawyer.

Kamkwamba cowrote a book with journalist and African correspondent Brian Mealer called The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. It just came out the end of September. It's for sale of course, but try your local library.

Oh, and William has a Web site. Here it is

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