Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change

We Built a Solar System That's Saving Babies’ Lives — Ep204: Project Bo, Sierra Leone

Apr 9, 2025

Dr. Niall Conroy, a pioneering doctor who established a neonatal intensive care unit in Sierra Leone, discusses his inspiring project, Project Bo. This solar initiative is crucial for providing reliable electricity, saving vulnerable newborns from the dangers posed by frequent power outages. He shares the transformative impact of solar power on neonatal care, enhancing survival rates and improving conditions for both infants and their mothers. Conroy also emphasizes the significance of ongoing support to ensure these life-saving resources remain accessible.

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ANECDOTE

Project Bo Visit

Michael Liebreich travels to Bo, Sierra Leone, to see firsthand the impact of Project Bo.
This project provides solar power to a neonatal unit in a country with high infant mortality.

ANECDOTE

Early Challenges in Bo

Dr. Niall Conroy, a public health consultant, describes the initial lack of neonatal care in Bo, Sierra Leone.
He explains the challenges of transporting sick newborns across the hospital campus in harsh weather.

ANECDOTE

Neonatal Unit Tour

Nurse Columbia shows the neonatal unit, where babies receive warmth, oxygen, and monitoring.
She highlights the importance of close monitoring for babies on oxygen.

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In Sierra Leone, a 20-minute power cut can be the difference between life and death for newborn babies.

In 2013, an extraordinary doctor called Dr Niall Conroy set up a neonatal intensive care unit at the Bo Government Hospital, in Sierra Leone's second largest city, and set about training the staff to give the best possible care to the desperately vulnerable babies who were admitted. But there was one problem he couldn't solve: electricity.

Babies need warmth, and that means electrically powered incubators, and they need oxygen, which means oxygen separators, and the nurses need light in order to work. However in Sierra Leone, there are power cuts almost daily. They can be a few minutes, they can be hours, or they can last days.

In 2017, Michael Liebreich heard about this problem and put together a group of friends and supporters to create Project Bo. Since then, the neonatal intensive care unit has had a solar system and batteries installed, and hundreds of babies’ lives have been saved due to a reliable electricity supply.

Eight years on, Michael visits Project Bo for the first time to see how the system is performing, meet the medical professionals working there, and find out if there's anything else that we can do to improve it.

Watch on YouTube:

Find the full documentary on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMxJzLNc214

Help Support Project Bo:

More About Project Bo: https://www.projectbo.org/
Our Campaign to Raise $100,000: https://www.gofundme.com/f/projectbo

Other Organisations Electrifying Healthcare:

Eki Foundation ⁠⁠https://fundacioneki.org/en/
Don Bosco Solar School In Bo⁠: ⁠⁠⁠https://donboscosolar.org/
Powering Healthcare Hub (Sustainable Energy for All): https://www.seforall.org/programmes/powering-healthcare-hub
We Care Solar: https://wecaresolar.org/
Resilient Power | Power for Health: https://www.directrelief.org/issue/resilient-power
Kids Operating Room: https://www.kidsor.org/

Leadership Circle:

Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live.

Credits:

Presented by Michael Liebreich
Written by Oscar Boyd & Michael Liebreich
Filmed, Produced & Edited by Oscar Boyd
Graphics by Jamie Oliver
Logistics: Jo Jagger & Alexandra McInerney
Special thanks to Dr Niall Conroy, Nurse Juliana Conteh, Nurse Columbia Samuella Bull, Mohammed Kargbo, as well as to the team at Bo Government Hospital, and the mothers who spoke with us for this documentary.