These are Emma Gründeman, Joost Verbart and Eva Loopik. We are students from different study fields (Emma studies Applied Physics, Joost studies Civil Engineering and Eva studies Public Management), who have joined hands to help Gambian people with their daily struggle for food and income. This program is supervised by the TU Delft and in close cooperation with a small Dutch NGO in The Gambia. We went to The Gambia from November 2016 to February 2017. Their mission: by using the solar drying technology and slightly adjusting the dryer of the previous year, leftovers of the harvest are no longer spoiled and with the right conserving techniques, even hunger in the hungry season might be overcome.

The TU Delft has previously sent students to The Gambia in 2013 and 2015 (There were also plans in 2014, but because of the outbreak of ebola this trip was cancelled). During these earlier projects, some prototypes of solar dryers have been made and in an agricultural region, farmers have become familiar with the technology. Solar drying systems make it possible to preserve the food longer (spices, bananas, tomatoes) both for own consumption and for marketing purposes. The design of Project DOMO 2015-2016 worked rather well, but not efficient enough. The next group had to take the step towards turning this design into a better and more efficient working solar dryer.