Dozens of “solar mamas” are being trained in Zanzibar to help light up Tanzania's semi-autonomous archipelago.

The program selects middle-aged women, most with little or no formal education, from villages without electricity and trains them over six months to become solar power technicians.

It is being run by Barefoot College International, a global nonprofit, and has lit 1,845 homes in Zanzibar so far.

The women return to their communities with at least 50 sets of household solar panel kits as well as the skills and equipment to set them up and keep them running.

Barefoot College International focuses on middle-aged women because they tend to have the strongest links to their communities while not often involved in intensive childcare.

"Our core focus was bringing light to the rural communities," said Brenda Geofrey, the director of Barefoot College International Zanzibar.

"All the villages which were not yet connected by the grid, we would select women from there and we would give them light.”

The Zanzibar campus is in its tenth year of teaching local women.

Before that, it sent women for training in India, where Barefoot College International was founded.

One was Khazija Gharib Issa, who had been an unemployed widow. Now she is a master trainer.

"At first, if you tell someone you're going to work, they would ask which job? They would question why a woman is doing what is perceived to be a man's job, because we climb up rooftop," said Issa.

"But now, they see my value. I have a job and I have my own home, which I did not have before."

Improving health is at the heart of the program's mission.

Alongside its flagship solar power course, Barefoot College International offers programs for women in tailoring, beekeeping and sustainable agriculture.

Every woman who completes a program is trained in general health knowledge that they are expected to take back to their villages.

The “solar mamas” are health catalysts in another way, by replacing harmful light sources like kerosene.

Barefoot College International has scaled up across Africa, with other campuses in Madagascar and Senegal.

In recent years, women have been brought to Zanzibar from Malawi and Somaliland, and this year some are being recruited from Central African Republic.

Funding remains a challenge as major donors, notably the United States and European ones, cut foreign aid and projects face more competition for money that remains.

Barefoot College International is run with public and private donations and revenue generated by its social enterprises.

Another challenge is resistance in local communities, where some people find it hard to accept the women technicians in a radical new gender role.

While the solar training program recruits with the approval of village leadership, who put forward candidates, some husbands have stopped their wives from training.

"The community is used to seeing women taking care of kids, cleaning, cooking, not going to the roof and making sure the whole house is electrified," said Geofrey.

"So for us it's not only empowering but it is also building the sustainable communities.”

The program is one of a small number of programs in Africa including Solar Sister.

AP video shot by Eagan Salla