It’s amazing what a difference a light can make. In communities we serve around the globe, lack of lighting means when darkness falls each evening, students are no longer able to study. That’s why Stop Hunger Now teams up with Lighting for Literacy, an organization that provides solar lights for use in education-related settings, such as in libraries, study halls or schools. Through this partnership, which began in 2013, we have shipped 91 solar lighting systems to recipients in Cambodia, Haiti, Nicaragua and Zambia.
We are excited to announce that this week, we sent our largest-ever shipment of lights–50 units–to Cambodia. The lights will be installed at the Don Bosco Technical School and Don Bosco Hotel School in Sihanoukville, Sihanouk Province, where they’ll be used in the following ways:
- 10 solar lights in the students boarders’ study hall
- 10 lights in the library, where students can access them on a daily basis
- 10 lights in the boarding students’ canteen, where more than 90 students eat every day
- 10 lights in the students’ kitchen and rice cooking place, where culinary students work together to prepare three meals each day
- 10 solar lights for night light around the Don Bosco Hotel School public area
The lighting units, which consist of a solar panel approximately 14″ square, a battery in a plastic case and the LED strip, are capable of lighting a room roughly 12’x12 in size. The students living and studying at the Don Bosco Technical School & Don Bosco Hotel School–many of whom do not have access to electricity outside of school–will utilize the lights to improve their education experience, as well as for training on solar power in the technical school’s curriculum.
“One thing that our project focuses on is to teach the next generation that they can help other youth Imagine and create a better future for others,” said Doug McNeil, Co-Founder of Lighting for Literacy. “Our efforts are focused on putting youth in a position, to see at a young age, that they can provide benefit around the globe with a transformational STEM program. Even if they are as young as 11 years old the can be the change agents of the next generation building compact, renewable, lighting systems to brighten the futures of others.”