The Impact of Light

How A Solar Light Can Make Life a Little Easier

Nearly 1 billion people in the world live with unreliable access or no access at all to electricity, and about 600 million of them live in Africa. When the sun goes down life stops.  People go to sleep in darkness, get up in darkness, and take care of loved ones in darkness.  And the only option is to light kerosene lamps, candles or maybe turn on a cheap flashlight.  Kerosene and candles are dangerous and expensive, as are flashlights/batteries. The average rural family in Africa will spend between 10% and 25% of their income on these energy sources.  This means that the poorest people in the world are proportionately spending more on energy than anyone else on the planet!

It's hard for most of us to imagine what it is like to live without electricity – being without light during the long, dangerous, monotonous and unproductive night hours.  We don’t think much about our relationship to energy and light.  We take light for granted.  In Rwanda, which is located near the equator, darkness comes every day of the year around 6:00 PM.  These long nights come with hardships – cooking is difficult and dangerous, babies and children are not able to be monitored closely, the disabled and the elderly cannot get around safely, school children cannot study, and for everyone, trips to the outhouse are difficult and often dangerous.

A simple solar light provides low-cost light, allowing families to save money, often for the first time.  These savings are commonly spent on food, seeds, medical care, school and home-based micro businesses.  With a solar light, cooking, childcare, and studying all become easier.  Life becomes a bit easier.

Solar lights will not solve all the problems of people living in extreme poverty, and a single solar light won’t save the world, however solar lights are changing thousands of lives – one person, one household, one community at a time.  We know this because our partner, “Let There Be Light International” (LTBLI) has donated 38,310 solar lights to vulnerable families.  And just in the last year or so, the “Shine On Rwanda” initiative of LTBLI has donated almost 800 lights, positively impacting over 4,000 lives!

And because an important part of our “Shine On Rwanda” solar light distribution program includes detailed assessment and follow-up in the communities receiving the lights, we really know that the lights significantly improve the lives of individuals and households.