Every market stall in Uganda tells a version of the same story.
A woman wakes before dawn, sets up her stock — frozen goods, chilled drinks, fresh produce — and spends the day hoping the power stays on. In Uganda, it often doesn’t. When the grid fails, which it does regularly, food spoils. Income disappears. A day’s work, gone.
For women running micro-businesses in communities with unreliable electricity, this isn’t a bad week. It’s the business model they’ve been handed — one built on loss, on diesel generators that cost more than they make, on hope that the lights stay on long enough to sell enough to survive.
Give To Africa and Koolboks are changing that equation. And in Uganda, 150 women are now running their businesses differently because of it.
What is Koolboks and How does it work?
Koolboks is a Nigerian-founded climate technology company with a simple, powerful idea: solar-powered refrigeration that works where the grid doesn’t.
With more than 10,000 solar-powered freezers deployed across 25 countries, Koolboks’ impact is visible at street markets, frozen food outlets, rural bars, and health clinics. Their units run on solar energy, store cold using an ice-battery system, and keep food and goods at safe temperatures through power cuts, through the night, through whatever the grid does or doesn’t do.
Koolboks’ products offer cooling at 50% less than the costs incurred for 12 hours of daily grid power or gas generators — a difference that, for a micro-entrepreneur selling frozen goods on a daily margin, is the difference between profit and loss.
Efficiency for Access estimates that up to 30% of post-harvest food losses could be saved through cold storage solutions. For the women Koolboks serves, that’s not an abstraction — it’s the stock they can now sell instead of throw away.
How Solar Freezers Reached 150 Women in Uganda
Give To Africa partnered with Koolboks to bring solar-powered freezers to 150 women entrepreneurs across Uganda — market traders, frozen food sellers, small business owners operating in communities where reliable electricity is either unavailable or unaffordable.
The intervention is targeted and practical. Each woman receives a solar freezer that:
- Operates entirely off-grid, with no ongoing fuel cost
- Maintains safe temperatures through power outages using the ice-battery system
- Allows her to stock more, sell more, and stay open longer
- Frees her from the daily calculation of “can I afford the diesel today”
For a woman selling frozen fish or chilled drinks in a Kampala neighborhood or a rural trading post, this isn’t an upgrade. It’s a structural change in how her business works.
Related: Give To Africa and Koolboks Partner to Empower 150 Women Entrepreneurs Across Uganda
Real Impact: Women’s Businesses Before and After
“Every day, I meet small business owners, mostly women, who are forced to throw away unsold food or burn diesel just to stay open. For them, cooling is not about convenience. It’s about survival, dignity, and income,” said Ayoola Dominic, Co-Founder and CEO of Koolboks.
That framing matters. This is not a charity story — it’s a business story. These women are entrepreneurs. They have customers, supply chains, daily operations. What they’ve lacked is infrastructure — the basic cold chain that businesses in wealthier markets take entirely for granted.
A solar freezer doesn’t give a woman a business. It gives her business a fighting chance.
When food stops spoiling, margins improve. When margins improve, she can reinvest — in more stock, in her children’s school fees, in the cooperative she belongs to. Research shows that 4.8 million more people could increase their incomes by owning refrigerators, which have been shown to generate additional income by opening new business opportunities like the sale of cold beverages. In Uganda, that number starts with 150.
Why Give To Africa Supports This Work
This is exactly the kind of partnership Give To Africa exists to broker and support. Koolboks is an African-founded company solving an African infrastructure problem with technology built specifically for the communities it serves — not adapted from somewhere else, not parachuted in. The women receiving these freezers aren’t beneficiaries of a handout. They’re entrepreneurs accessing a tool that lets them compete.
Koolboks’ units combine solar resilience, IoT monitoring, and flexible payment options — a package designed to lower the operational risk of running cold chains where grid voltage and cash inflows are intermittent. That’s not a pitch. That’s a description of what’s actually needed on the ground, built by people who know the ground.
Through our partnership, Give To Africa is helping resource this model — connecting donors to an initiative that is measured, transparent, and led by people who understand exactly what they’re building.
Discover More: See how we are empowering communities through our success stories.
How Your Donation Powers Women’s Businesses in Uganda
If you’ve donated to Give To Africa, this is part of what your contribution supports. Not an abstract program, not overhead — 150 women in Uganda with cold storage that works, a business model that holds, and a margin worth protecting.
The next woman on that list is waiting. Support this work at 2africa.org/donate
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