Windmills

I saw this segment on Good Morning America last week and I just can't get it out of my head. They had an interview with a young African man named William Kamkwamba, who built a windmill to produce electricity for his family's home. At the time he was 14 or 15 years old and couldn't go to school because his family couldn't afford the $80 a year tuition. So he went to the nearest library and borrowed books about physics and generating electricity and taught himself. He built a windmill out of junk parts he could find lying around. It just amazed me that this boy who had nothing, had so much initiative that he would do whatever it took to make his family's life better. It's such an amazing and heartwarming story.

On this page at Good Morning America's website, there is a link to the video of the interview, I think it's the 4th link listed. There is a feature length documentary about William, called Moving Windmills, in production now. You can watch an excerpt of it here. I hope you will take the time to watch the videos, they're about 5 or 6 minutes each.

He also wrote a book, with co-author Brian Mealer, called The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

I'm not trying to sell anything, and no one asked me to write this. I just saw this young man's story and it touched my heart so much that I had to share it with y'all. We always hear about so many bad things happening around the world that I thought we all could benefit from an inspiring story such as this. I hope you are all having a great weekend!