The Affordable Village Lighting Project

“In the Himalayan mountains there are tens of thousands of scattered villages and homes. The locations of these settlements were chosen long ago with 2 primary criteria in mind: access to a water source and land to grow food and sustain their animals. Many if not most of these settlements are still without electricity and the villagers are extremely poor. They are living on the margins of society, being barely able sustain themselves. Most of us take for granted the electricity in our homes and the ability to turn on a switch and have nice lighting for a myriad of uses like cooking or reading at night. In these villages, artificial light is available in the form of kerosene wick lamps. The light is very dim, the kerosene is expensive, and the smoke from the kerosene irritates the eyes and lungs. The open flame also poses a fire risk.”

“Last October’s (2009) trek took me to an off the beaten track area in Nepal. One particular village named Namarkhu had a good source of water power located about 20 minutes walk from the village. The villagers could not afford to pay for a hydroelectric power system in part due to the expense of the transmission line that was about a mile away from the village.”

“Our need for light is a given, and the currently lighting in these homes is in inadequate, expensive, and injurious to one’s health. Watching villager women struggle to cook in the dark or students trying to do homework by the minimal candle power of a kerosene wick lamp is heartbreaking. Can we come up with an affordable and better lighting alternative for these villagers that cost less than the current cost of kerosene without the problems of kerosene? Assuming the technological and village organizational hurdles can be surmounted; I think there is tremendous scope for replication of the project in thousands of other locations throughout the Himalayas. This would help achieve the goal of providing more and better lighting at a lower cost than kerosene lighting, while eliminating the problems associated with kerosene.”

- Mitchell Silver, Project Creator and Director

We are also working on putting together a documentraty film about Namarkhu (the Village) and the integration of this new lighting opportunity.
Project slated to begin in Napal – March of 2010
©2010

Currently in stage one of the project, Black Diamond Equipment has jumped on this opportunity and will be graciously donating the supply of Apollo Lanterns needed for this project and Patagonia Clothing has given a very generous donation as well as gear for our travels. THANK YOU!

I will serve as Head of Production.

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