Solar lighting for remote communities in S.E.Asia

Firstly, all of us here at The Branch Foundation would like to take this opportunity to wish you a happy New Year and to thank you once again for your generous donation towards this project!

We've been delighted to see donations rolling in towards this project, especially over the holiday period. It's been 11 months since we put this project up on GlobalGiving and we now have only $645 to go to reach our target which just goes to show that no matter how small or large contributions are, it all adds up to make our work possible.

During this fundraising stage, we've been putting our efforts into researching communities in Southeast Asia that we can support with solar lighting. We have a couple of potential developments and we'll be sure to keep you up to date with our decision making process.

Until then, it would be greatly appreciated if you could tell your friends and family about this project in order for us to reach our funding target - hopefully we can achieve it within the next month!

With sincere gratitude,

Tom Rosen and The Branch Foundation Team

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We would like to start this report by thanking you for your donation. The majority of our projects are supported by individual donors so without the generosity from people such as yourself, our work simply would not be possible. As we are still a long way from reaching our target goal for this initiative, we will focus our attention on raising funds until a time in which it can be implemented. In the meantime, let us give you some background regarding our previous solar projects so that you have some idea of just how important bringing solar lighting into people's lives is:

Solar lighting at Koung Jor refugee camp

Our first solar project took place in 2012 at a refugee camp in Northern Thailand which is home to ethnic Shan who fled Burma due to violence and persecution. We installed solar lighting systems in every household which enabled just under 600 residents to have access to this green and safe technology. This improved safety, education and income generation standards in this community. To find out more about this project, please click HERE.

Retrofitting of solar systems at a Karen village in Thailand

For this project, we partnered with the Border Green Energy Team. Solar systems in this isolated village in Thailand had already been installed by the Government, yet many of these systems had since failed to work. This is due to the lack of maintenance training that was provided to the villagers and also outdated technology. We helped repair solar panels and other components, and provided training so that these systems could be repaired locally. More information regarding this project can be found HERE.

Solar lighting for an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Burma

This project was implemented at the beginning of 2015. Residents of this small community lived in a very remote area close to the Thai-Burmese border and did not have access to electricity. Using GlobalGiving, we raised enough funds to provide solar lanterns for approximately 120 people. Please click HERE for more information.

Solar lighting for 115 school children from Burma

This project also took place during the first months of 2015. We partnered with Solbakken, a grassroots organisation who are specialised in bringing solar lighting and clean water to remote communities both in Thailand and in Burma. The solar lighting we installed allowed 115 school children to be able to study at night and therefore bring an overall improvement in the quality of education in this small community. You can find the GlobalGiving page for this project by clicking HERE.

We hope that in the next update we are closer to our funding target. To help us get there, please feel free to share this project with your friends and family.

With sincere gratitude,

Tom Rosen and The Branch Foundation team