Designing a sustainably-powered shea nut grinder to support a women's collective in Ghana in the production and distribution of shea nut butter.
MIT D-Lab class
D-Lab: Leadership in Design (EC.725) - Spring 2025
Country
Ghana
Team
- Louisa Wood ‘25 - Fourth-year undergraduate student from Milwaukee, Wisconsin studying Aeronautical Engineering with a minor in Mechanical Engineering.
- Claire Underwood ‘26 - Third-year MIT undergraduate student from Yorba Linda, California studying Chemical-Biological Engineering.
- Alice Hall ‘26 - Third-year MIT undergraduate student from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania studying Chemical Engineering with a minor in Spanish.
- Ayah Mahmoud ‘25 - Fourth-year undergraduate from Dayton, Ohio, studying Design.
Community partner
- Caroline Morris, Partnership Manager
- Freda Pigru, Ayirkasa founder
- Lilian Paaga, Community liaison and Facilitator
- Sabina Moss-Haaren, Fundraising Manager
Opportunity to innovate
The Ayirkasa women’s collective wants a shea crushing machine located at their new processing center to grind shea nuts. Since IAP, the group has had a shea crusher attached to a motor but has not used it significantly due to challenges with the electrical grid. Our team is working on means to use the shea crusher without electricity from the grid.
What is Ayirkasa?
Nandom, located in Ghana’s Upper West Region, is a rural area shaped by the rhythms of a tropical climate marked by distinct wet and dry seasons, which strongly influence agricultural practices and daily life. The community speaks both English and Dagara, reflecting a blend of formal and indigenous linguistic traditions. Nandom boasts a rich cultural heritage, particularly evident in its vibrant music, cuisine, and traditional ceremonies. Within this context, women in the village have formed a social cooperative aimed at fostering economic resilience and independence. This group of 35 women, operating in a closely connected community, produces and sells raw shea butter during the agricultural off-season, offering a safer and more sustainable alternative to the often hazardous and physically demanding labor options otherwise available. The cooperative reflects values of environmental stewardship, economic empowerment, and collective ownership, all of which are principles deeply rooted in the community’s adaptive responses to both cultural and economic challenges.
Our solution
We have learned that the previous grinder mechanism works well as far as they have tested it, but they want a manual power source. Therefore, we have decided to make a system to swap the crushing machine to be bike-powered whenever the collective has no electricity. The collective made it clear that they would still like to be able to connect the crusher to a motor in the future when they have power (especially once they have solar). Children are often present in the collective and women wear long dresses. Our design therefore shelters the bike mechanism and grinder so that fabric, hair, and children cannot get caught.
Next steps
The next steps for the project partner are to bring our design materials to the mechanic in Wa to construct the bike-powered crusher attachment. This will enable the crushing machine to be used even when electricity is unavailable.
The next steps for future MIT D-Lab students is to implement feedback from the collective on the crusher once they are able to use it, to plan a solar grid for the Ayirkasa center, and to prototype a shredder design for crushing the nuts. The collective wants a solar grid to support the crusher machine, their office space, and additional machines they plan to acquire. For the crushing machine, a new design may be better than the auger meat-grinder they currently use. The Spring 2025 team tested a tiny version of a shredder like design and it was promising.
Examples from last semester can be viewed here.
MIT D-Lab student blog post from January 2025 trip to Ghana to work on Shea nut mill here.
Contact
Ankita Singh or Eliza Squibb, Co-Instructors Leadership in Design