Village Lighting Project for Remexio, East Timor
The Village Lighting Project aims to improve the living standard of people living in three very remote communities in the Remexio district of East Timor. Kangaroo Valley has had a village-to-village partnership with Remexio since May 2000. The Village Lighting Project is its most ambitious project to date.
Houses in the village are traditional in design, with a single door and no windows, so they are very dark inside. The Lighting Project will replace inadequate and polluting light sources with solar-powered lighting. Currently, and only if householders can afford it, houses are typically lit by kerosene in small discarded paint tins, or sometimes candles, producing a flickering light which causes eyestrain and produces particulates.
A representative of Kangaroo Valley who visited the three mountain-top communities in October 2008 described the access as "a 4WD fire trail on a dead-end goat track masquerading as a road". No other aid group has visited there for decades.
Adequate lighting will make a real difference to the lives of everyone, especially students. Each household will receive a system consisting of a small solar panel, a controller, a battery and two energy-efficient lights bulbs, in return for which they will contribute to a community fund for the system's upkeep. Maintenance training and skills transfer are essential elements of the scheme. The cost to recipients should be about a quarter of what they currently pay for kerosene. This is significant in a country deemed the poorest in Asia.
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A not-for-profit organisation, Alternative Technologies Association (ATA), has agreed to source and install the solar systems for Kangaroo Valley, at cost, using volunteers from Australia and Timorese from the villages who will be trained to assist in the installation and to carry out the bulk of the ongoing maintenance. ATA has successfully introduced the system into other villages, with very positive feedback (for instance, women are freed for other tasks during daylight hours, no longer having to complete all their indoor work before the sun sets and children can study).
The cost of one system is about $150. Each household will pay $10 upfront at installation and a monthly fee of $2. All households in the three communities (a total of 120) will receive the systems. The total funds needed for the120 systems is $18,000. Some additional costs are involved in training and equipping several local technicians to install, trouble shoot and repair the systems. We are therefore aiming to raise $22,000. Contributions to the project are tax deductible.
Although some funds have already been raised, the major fund-raising activity will be a charity walk in Kangaroo Valley on 19th September 2009. It is expected that enough money will be raised by the walk to reach the target, so that the lights can be installed by ATA in October.