By Atul Lekhra | Manager- Online Donor Communication
Dear Friend,
You will be happy to know that with your help and support our project “Lighting up a Darken Village in India” is now fully funded. Thanks to you.
Our first phase of installation of solar home lighting has been finished in the Mala hamlet near Madri village of Jhadol tehsil in Udaipur district. The villagers are very jubilant after the first phase of solar lighting installation got over; they said ‘our dark nights are over now’. Totally ten households have been electrified out of twenty, rest of ten household will be electrified in the next month.
The villagers almost had lost their hopes, that they will never have light during night time. They imagined that lighting up of village will never happen in near future, considered it as a distant dream for themselves. The demographic constraint likes hilly terrain, less and sparsely located population, unavailability of any communication always put their dream of lighting in question. In this hamlet, most of the households are of BPL (Below poverty Line) categories, who can’t afford to generate power for their night light on their own. Their livelihoods are basically dependent on subsistence farming and rearing of cows and goats. The lower level of literacy and unavailability of basic amenities like electricity for every household, pointed towards their bleak future for their younger generation. But the installation of solar light in the village has started to make great impact in their day today life.
One of the solar power beneficiaries told us that “every night was like curse for us for many years, where we used to finish our daily routine work under kerosene oil lamp it was suffocating for us; we had to inhale smoke released from lamp as well as we had to put strain on our eyes for finishing day-today task, due to less visibility. It was often a norm in the village as the sun set to dusk; we used to finish our household chores and initiate ourselves to go for sleep.” Their children were always deprived of studying in the night, their education used to affect most during school’s exam. Now, the parents are relived that their children will have better future because they would be able to study in the nights too. This hamlet is located in the forest area, where there is always a chance of attack from different wild animals like Panther, wild foxes or even high risk of snake biting. Many solar light beneficiaries opined that they had several cases of snake biting during night sleep. Due to these reasons their movement within the household was also restricted during night. Now, they say solar light has given them new life where their life would be little carefree and able to perform their day to day task more efficiently. Even the inaccessibility of lights in the night has impact on their nutritional intake. Usually they used to cook food early in the afternoon or evening and used to eat in the night which usually kept in the open for longer duration without any protection, which led to mixing of dust particle and insects in the food. But now they say solar lighting will allow them to eat fresh cooked meals under light in the nights, which will improve their overall health and well beings.
Thank you once again for all your help and support.
Regards
Atul Lekhra & Seva Mandir Team
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