Light in the Night

The Solar Empowerment Initiative (SEI) is a small Maryland-based charity with the ambitious vision of providing safe, efficient, environmentally friendly solar lights to essentially anybody who needs them anywhere in the world. This includes not only remote villages in Africa that are not connected to the power grid, but also people in cities and towns who are too poor to pay for electricity, as well as the homeless living on the streets of American cities, under overpasses, or in wooded areas in the suburbs. The little girl in the picture actually lives in a poor section of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Her family is too poor to pay for electricity. Yet, she is afraid of the dark and loves to read her picture book when she has the light to do so. One of our partner organizations transported the lanterns to Ethiopia at no cost to SEI.

The charity began operations 2016, when it provided solar lights to a single village in Senegal. Since then it has distributed more than 8000 solar lanterns, some with the capability of charging cellphones to over two dozen villages, primarily in Africa, but also to Sri Lanka, as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands after the hurricane of 2017, and also to the homeless here in the US.

SEI is a highly efficient charity. It makes the most of every dollar donated by leveraging the capabilities of its many partners to transport and distribute the solar lanterns to the actual recipient in the target countries, and in some cases these partners even help with the purchase costs. This has allowed SEI to have a worldwide reach and impact on a very small budget. Moreover, no member of the organization is paid. In fact, the board members are among its biggest donors. The bottom line is that every dollar donated to this life-changing charity will go to the purchase of and distribution of solar lanterns.

Please read this email that we recently received from an individual Peace Corp volunteer to whom we gave solar lanterns to in 2018:

“My village is Bantenguel Kassoum (Sare Kassoum) and it is 8k south of Mampatim in Kolda. 

“The lamps have been extremely helpful. Every day I have people from my village and surrounding villages asking me when more lamps are going to arrive.  So far, I have sold 2 boxes of lamps (96 total) and it seems like I would easily be able to sell 2 more boxes. 

“The most use I see out of the lamps is when the women are cooking dinner and for kids who study after dinner.

 The women would typically use a flashlight while cooking but had to always be holding it. But with the lamps they are able to hang them, and it lights up the entire area and makes cooking more efficient. 

“After everyone is finished eating, I would see kids all huddled around the lamp studying. This is a huge advantage because when kids arrive home from school, they need to help with various household chores and don’t have any free time until after dinner, and by then it is too dark to study. 

“But the biggest advantage for me is I’ve been selling them for 2,500 CFA (500 for the organization and 2,000 for my village). For my village to receive the grant money, it needed to contribute 15% of the total grant amount. And by using the proceeds from the lamps I was able to achieve that. We are currently digging a well and later we will be purchasing fencing, seeds, and tools to start a garden. The garden will improve food security. Currently there are no vegetables at my site, partly because the current well is unable to both support drinking and cooking water and a garden at the same time. And also, because there is not enough income for many of them to purchase vegetables. This garden will increase their access to vital nutrients and allow them to sell their harvest at the local market. 

One consideration to keep in mind is I started selling them during the dry season when their savings have been diminished and many were unable to purchase them. But currently they have been selling their peanut harvest and people have been telling me that they currently have enough funds to purchase the lamps and really want me to bring more lamps to site. 

Thank you again for everything, it was a pleasure meeting you and when the garden is finished, I plan on taking photos and sending them your way.”

Derek"

SEI received approximately $1.00 from the sale of each lantern. That money was used to send four boxes (192 lanterns) to an even more remote area of Senegal. Using this business model, we incentivize the villagers to contribute to communal projects and also help us defray a portion of our in-country costs. All monies received stay in the country.