Lighting a Billion Lives

TERI, with its vision to work for global sustainable development and its commitment towards creating innovative solutions for a better tomorrow, has undertaken an initiative of Lighting a Billion Lives (LaBL) through the use of solar lighting devices.




The Campaign aims to bring light into the lives of one billion rural people by replacing the kerosene and paraffin lanterns with solar lighting devices. This will facilitate education of children; provide better illumination and kerosene-smoke-free indoor environment for women to do household chores; and provide opportunities for livelihoods both at the individual level and at village level. In terms of physical targets, it translates into 200 000 000 solar lanterns in use, assuming that each solar lantern benefits five members of a family.

The Campaign targets all communities across the world that lack access to modern and clean sources of lighting. Through this Campaign, local entrepreneur-driven delivery channels are created for distribution and servicing of solar lanterns to rural communities, for whom kerosene is the predominant fuel for lighting—not only in households but also in small enterprises such as shops, local bazaars, tuition and coaching centres, and cottage industries.

The Campaign uses solar lanterns that have CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) as well as LEDs (light emitting diodes) for dual purposes. While CFL provides bright illumination for tasks such as studying and cooking; LEDs provide general low-level illumination during the whole night. The solar lantern, specially designed for the Campaign, lights up for 45 hours daily using CFL and another 67 hours using LEDs upon full charge of its battery.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Grassroot
• outreach