How do you do your school homework when there’s no light? That’s a problem for millions of children, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. ‘But surely not in a town – not in Timbuktu’, you might say. Sadly, although Timbuktu has an electricity supply in principle, it was unreliable at the best of times and now most houses have no electric power. So our friends there have asked Hay2Timbuktu to help.
We’re raising funds to provide rechargeable lights to four Timbuktu schools. Each school will get a solar panel, a charging unit and 40 lamps. Each day the children will take home a fully charged lamp, use it at home, and return it to school the next day for recharging – it means the school can keep a check on their condition, and it’s an extra incentive for parents to send their children (especially girls) to school rather than keeping them home to do help out. What we particularly like is that they are manufactured in nearby Burkina Faso, by a French-Burkinan company.
Will you sponsor one of the 160 lamps? £30 will light up homework for several years. Or please give what you can to help nudge us along. You can donate here.
Here is a link to a film showing the lights in action in neighbouring Burkina Faso.