Updated Jan 15, 2021
Emily Bellis
Send Message600 million people are living without electricity across sub-Saharan Africa. They have no choice but to rely on candles, poor quality torches and worst of all kerosene lamps to escape the dark. These filthy devices are imperilling health, impairing education, wasting income, and emitting astonishingly high amounts of carbon into the atmosphere – whilst putting lives in danger, every single night. The latest projections are that by 2030, the deadline for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there will still be 600 million people left in the dark. Many other solar companies and aid initiatives focus on larger, more expensive solar products such as solar home-systems. These are simply unaffordable for millions of families and we are not reaching the poorest fast enough.
With a solar light, everything changes: • One whole household has clean, safe and affordable light • 1,000 extra study hours are created for children • $194 saved by families through not having to buy kerosene, candles or batteries • Over half the household experiencing better health with less eye and respiratory illness • 1.1 tonnes of CO2 emissions averted