Press releases October 2002

 

  1. Monday

 

When you visit a third world country you come face to face with poverty. You see people dealing with poor accommodation, limited cooking facilities or poor and expensive lighting. Sometimes you just look on in amazement at the cheerfulness of people coping with adversity. Faith Harckham decided to do something about what she saw in Nepal.

 

In 1998, in a foothills village called Norung she helped the villagers complete their school building and hire an additional teacher. When this had been done she asked what the villages had as their priority. They told her that they needed better lighting in their homes so that, in particular, children could do some homework and obtain more benefit from their schooling opportunities.

 

In 2000 she returned with a lighting system for the entire village. Each home received one light and a battery that they could charge at the school where a number of solar panels were installed. Initially 47 homes were each supplied with  a light, and subsequently this number has grown to nearly 70.

 

On her return from the deeply enriching experience of meeting and helping the villagers in Nepal, Faith thought that others might appreciate a similar experience and the concept of social tourism was developed. The plan was that participants would trek to a village and help to install alighting system there: part of their trekking fee would go towards the cost of the lighting system.

 

A planned further visit to Nepal did not materialize because of the political situation: the two airports in the region where the lights would be installed, have both had their control towers destroyed by the insurgents.

 

Instead the trip to Bolivia was planned. Based on the experience in Nepal it was important that the villagers should demonstrate that the lighting system was something they really wanted and would value. Faith worked through an NGO in Bolivia, CECASEM, and agreed that if a village would install clay ovens in their kitchens, with flues to remove the smoke which otherwise circulated in the kitchens and was a significant health hazard, then they would be provided with lights.

 

Two villages were identified and a trekking party of 10 persons, including Faith and Anthony Harckham signed up for the trip. The key part of the undertaking was that all the party agreed that they would commit both their time and labour as well as money towards making the lighting system a reality for the villages.

 

Before the trip started the individuals helped to assemble the 240 lights and 120 power units that were needed. They also did their research to find out what they could about the villages and about the culture of the Aymara people who lived in the communities. They provided themselves with toolkits (screwdrivers, wire strippers and nut drivers) to ensure that they could undertake the installation work and leave the villagers with tools to perform maintenance on the lights.

 

On their return some of the party found the experience so rewarding that they have asked to be included in future treks. Everyone agreed that being in the villages and installing the lights had provided them with an enormous insight into what it meant to live the third world. They also returned with a sense of having dome something to help others which simply cannot be obtained with a cash contribution alone.

 

Faith said “we were extremely gratified to have achieved all three goals of the trip – to have installed all the lights that we planned in the two villages, to have got everybody there and back, and to have heard how deeply rewarding and unique the experience had been for all participants.”

 

Future trips to Bolivia and possibly to other countries are being actively planned at this time.

 

  1. Wednesday

 

Light is one of the things we take for granted: an electric switch is flipped and we are bathed in light. In many parts of the world this is not the case. In regions close to the equator where darkness lasts close to 12 hours all the year round it can be a particular problem.

 

Children have chores to do as well as schoolwork; they collect firewood and fodder for the livestock. When darkness falls they cannot read their books. Access to light is important.

 

As a painter Faith Harckham also knows the value of light: the way in which a subject is illuminated affects the way we see it. Her paintings, sold through galleries in Banff and Canmore, provide the major part of the funding used to put lights into third world villages. (For her paintings see www.faithharckham.com )

 

The lighting technology used are state of the art light emitting diodes. A recent article in The Economist (October 3rd issue) proclaimed “Over the next decade, incandescent bulbs and fluorescent tubes are likely to give way to illumination based on solid-state semiconductors”. The villages are thus ahead of their time. The current diodes provide adequate light for reading and consume only 1 watt of power: they get their power from a battery which provides the energy for two lights for about 5 days. Then it can be recharged at a site provided with solar panels. Because the lights use so little power the number of panels needed is dramatically reduced. The cost per home is around $150 Canadian, including two lights, battery and the solar panel installation.

 

Efficiency is important and the design of the circuit to convert the 12 volt battery supply to a 3.5 volt current source focused on making the conversion efficient. Dr. Grant McGibney at TRLabs in Calgary volunteered his time and expertise to develop the circuit which met the performance criteria at an affordable price. Ryan Snowden, a student at TRLabs provided the printed circuit board design. Richard Tanguay of Pangaea Manufacturing Inc. donated the board assembly and soldering: Kevin Doherty of Pangaea Manufacturing Inc. was the person who nursed the board through the assembly process.

 

The housing for the light was based on a small ABS connector (used for waste water plumbing in most homes in North America) and the design of the bracket to complete the housing benefited from the help of Mervin Weitz of Exx-Ell Industries Inc. A number of people helped in assembling the 250 lights and 125 power units that were taken to Bolivia. The full list can be seen at our sources of support.

 

The diodes are expected to work for 30 years (50,000 hours) much longer than conventional light bulbs and so the villages should be assured of their lighting for years to come.

 

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