According to HARPIS-SL, Sierra Leon is rated as the 17th most vulnerable country in terms of air pollution due to a variety of causes including the fact that most households use charcoal or wood as a source of fuel for cooking and other related activities. Add pollutions from the vehicles to that and you have a problem.
Emanuel Aliseu Mansaray, a 24 year old man from Freetown, Sierra Leon, is fighting back against this pollutions in the most ingenious way.
The University student built a solar powered car built from trash and it works! He calls this car "imagination car".
"The imagination car was built primarily as a result of the knack in me to invent creative technology to solve problems in my community. So I decided to create the imagination solar car powered by the sun to reduce the risk of attracting incommunicable and respiratory deseases such as the lung cancer, asthma etc, caused by inhaling harzadouse fumes emmited by cars using other types of fuel (fossils, gaseous and liquid), " explained Mansaray.
But building this car was not easy as it took the patient inventor 3 years to complete and he made it using the country's signature colours of green, white and blue. The imagination car cost Mansaray $500 and can now be seen moving around in his hometown with a speed of upto 15km per hour (9 miles an hour).
Mansaray adds that he's had the talent of coming up with innovative solutions to solve problems since he was a child, "I started coming up with innovative solutions since I was a child. I was creating amazing technologies to solve electricity problems in our house during the night. We used thus electricity to study and charge our mobile phones."
So far do good, Mansaray's project has been well received." I have received lots of positive feedbacks from people around the world, they told me that I'm a clear positive example to the world. I made a breakthrough with nothing."
"In future, my dream is to become a great renewable energy inventor." Mansaray concluded.