Understanding the problem
Bhawna a 15 year old student in the GHS Posehettihalli school , Chikkaballapur district is an eager learner. A student of standard ten, this daughter of a landless labourer was worried as she finds no time to study time to study. Her family of 6 has been extremely supportive and has big dreams for her. Her problem was that their small home had no electric power.
Chetan a classmate of Bhawna does have power supply at home. He too finds it difficult to study. Despite living in a home with ‘electricity’, his problem was extremely low voltage. “The lights we use are no better that candle light” he said!
Light at night, a necessity for us remains a luxury for families who live in close proximity to our city.
Erratic power supply and low voltage and lack of access to this erratic power supply made studying a challenge for students in this area. While this situation prevails through the year, the conditions are extremely bad during the ‘exam season’ – the summer months.
The Light for Education Project was designed to give night-time electricity to students in rural schools and girls hostels
The Solution
One Good Step, collaborated with Selco, a pioneer in solar power to implement a sustainable solution to this issue.
The program, “Light For Education” was launched in December 2015 to provide solar-powered reading lights to students of Standard X, the crucial school completion year.
The program also sought to reduce reliance on fossil fuels with emphasis on green energy.
The unique aspect of this solution was the installation of solar infrastructure (panels and charging stations) in the school premises. The students carry the lamps home but the battery that powers the lamp can be charged only in the school. This is significant as the need for good lighting at home encouraged students to attend school regularly.
Students are asked to bring the battery that needs to be charged to school every alternate day. Once charged, this powers the lamp for 4-6 hours for days.
Sharing the solar infrastructure helped make the model cost effective.
Once the students complete their school year, this lamp is handed over to the next batch of standard X students. As the life of this lamp is expected to be 4-5 years, we expect 5 batches of standard X students to benefit from it.
Children given Reading lamps and Electricity for 5 girls Hostels
It has been a wonderful learning experience for One Good Step. It was extremely heartening to see contributors come forward and donate lamps generously to thousands of students.