Kopernik

On top of replacing the dim light and noxious fumes of a kerosene lantern, another benefit of using a solar light is that it eliminates the burden of buying kerosene each week.. We have seen that families in rural western Kenya, while rarely making more than a couple thousand Kenyan shillings (KSH) per week, spend anything between 200 KSH to 1000 KSH (US$2.40 to US$11.90) per week on kerosene (or paraffin, as it is called Kenya) .

Last December, I wrote about starting a new project in Lakwati village on Alor Island, Indonesia. Working with Topa Haliel Savings and Loans Group, we introduced various solar lights, fuel-efficient cookstoves, and water filters and purifiers to get feedback, find out how much people were willing to pay for them, and work out the most effective ways of getting these technologies into the hands of the people who need them. I am very happy to update you on the progress of this project.

1h13min.

At least 1.3 billion people rely solely on dangerous and dirty kerosene lanterns for light, according to World Energy Outlook 2011 estimates. When the number of people with unreliable access to electricity is factored in, d.light calculates up to to 3 billion people around the world use kerosene for lighting. Any way you cut it, a frightening number of people still rely on this 19th century technology.

It's always inspiring to see initiatives helping to improve the quality of education for Indonesian kids. It's even better to be a part of one of these initiatives. But best of all, to be involved in a project where junior high school students inspire their younger peers to get excited about studying science.

Now that we have seen a little bit about life in western Kenya, let’s look at how the rural communities touched by the Q Drums fit in the bigger picture. Our project site, Matungu, located in the Kakamega county of Kenya’s western region and spanning 276 km², is one of the 290 electoral constituencies in Kenya. It's a mostly rural area, where the majority of the 147,000 residents live from subsistence farming (such as maize, sugar cane and potatoes) and raising animals. Salaried employment is hard to come by.

Our local partner, Yaya Education Trust, distributed 52 Q Drums in the 13 sub-locations within the Matungu district. Over the course of two weeks, we will be interviewing 30 of the families who have purchased Q Drums to see what impact they are having, and shed some light on why they are so oversubscribed!

On this very fine day, let’s hop on our motorbike (piki piki in the local language), meander a bit in sugar cane fields, and venture to the village of Harambee!

As a group of children walks past our home with their respective kid-sized buckets (some on their tiny heads!), we are reminded that it is about time for us to head to the spring to get some drinking water to go with dinner tonight. Let’s head out before the sun sets!

Nusa Penida is only a 45 minute boat ride from the beach town of Sanur, but in 23 years of living in Bali I had never ventured across to this exotic and magical island. All that changed last week, but there was no time to take in the jungle trekking or diving with mola-mola for which Nusa Penida is famous. My trip was about spreading the news of Kopernik’s life-changing technologies to the community in Desa Ped (Ped village).