Lights to the Rescue

Today we ran out of luck with the weather and we weren’t so lucky with our training location either. Most of our training sessions take place in community centers or schools. At today’s location we found out at the last minute that the large room we were going to use was hosting another meeting and we would have to make do with something smaller. Did I mention it was pouring rain? So after a brief delay, 30 or so soggy adults and children have all squeezed into a small room that could comfortably fit 15. It is also raining so hard that we need to shut the window and door to keep the rain out. We need to shout to be heard over the pounding rain. As soon as we all piled into the room we realized that our biggest challenge wasn’t going to be noise or space, but light. There wasn’t enough light to see each other, let alone the radios or the contracts that had to be signed. In our bags we had two new wind-up and solar powered Freeplay Lifelights – which we had been using for field-tests and demonstrations, and which were about to be put to their first formal use – lighting up our training session!

The lights have received an overwhelmingly positive response since we began field testing them – it’s often possible to understand simply by looking at people’s faces what kind of impact they would have on daily life. People smile, their eyes widen, they clap, and they handle the light and talk excitedly amongst each other… Every day of our trip I wished to have a magic bag that I could open up and take out a light for each person.

Radios and lights – technology that is so simple but brings such richness to people’s lives it almost needs to be seen to be believed. On visits to people’s homes I have seen how dark the houses are during the day, but here in this tiny room people were giving us a lesson – Do you see? Do you see how even during the day lighting can be a challenge? Do you know that already our days end so early? Do we know how much kerosene would have to be burned to light our session? Can you imagine how your eyes and throat would burn from the smoke? In that small room, with our clean energy lights shining we did imagine – and I reached for my magic bag…