Liter of Light Ghana is a growing organization that seeks to provide eco-friendly, cost-effective solar lighting to communities that are deprived or have inadequate access to light. The technology that Liter of Light operates on is one that was developed by 'My Shelter Foundation', an NGO based in the Philippines. Founded by Illiac Diaz, the organization developed this innovative process that marries solar panels with recycled plastic bottles to produce clean, renewable lighting. Along with materials that can be sourced locally, these lights can be installed in electricity-deprived homes.

In a country such as Ghana with well over 300 days of uninterrupted sunlight, it is expedient to harvest this natural source of energy to ameliorate the issue at hand. This technology has been used by the UN and has been adopted in some UNHCR camps worldwide.

The liter of light Ghana team is comprised of young adults with a common goal of improving the lives of people in our beloved country, Ghana, and eventually beyond our country’s borders. The team plans on building and installing solar lanterns for 100 homes this December.

Below are some of the lights the team will be building for the project:

Daylight 

Nightlight 

Most people would agree that light is a basic necessity of life, to be seen as a right and not a privilege. Unfortunately, many people in the world (approx 1.3 billion) live without access to adequate electricity and thus light. Many small communities in Ghana (especially on the outskirts of town) are not even connected to the national electricity grid. When nighttime comes, most activity (and productivity) slows down considerably and even comes to a halt as there is no adequate lighting to help individuals and families carry out simple tasks. Children rely on candles or health hazardous kerosene lamps to study at night. Apart from straining their eyes to study under the dim, flickering lights these lamps offer, they put their healths at risk by inhaling the toxic kerosene fumes emanating from the lamps.

Many families, who tend to use candles a  lot, are at a higher risk of having house fires and/or sustaining multiple degree burns due to accidents with these alternative lights. A visit to the Korle-Bu teaching hospital’s burns and reconstructive block last year helped the team see first-hand the damage that candle and kerosene lamp use has caused. Whole families lay in recovery rooms with life-threatening burns from accidents with candles/kerosene lamps. Many of these individuals and families lost their homes, and in some cases their loved ones, to these fires.

Kerosene lanterns are a poverty trap for these families. They may seem like the best alternative but serve only to retard health and burn holes in the pockets of these low income families who depend on them each night. Buying kerosene each day is expensive in the long run; both on the incomes and health of these people.

It is not uncommon in Ghana to see a child doing his homework with a kerosene lamp, or a candle, or for market vendors to use candles to try to illuminate their work spaces when it gets dark.

To these communities, reliance on candles and kerosene lamps seems to be an inevitable option or may even seem to them to be the solution to their problems. This reliance however has obvious disadvantages. Smoke from kerosene and candles cause respiratory illness and may subsequently cause death. Precious lives are also lost through fire outbreaks from these crude modes of light.

The Pilot

Earlier this year, in July, a pilot project was conducted in a small community called Akorlikope in the southeastern part of Ghana. Members of Liter of light Ghana built and installed lanterns in two homes as well as a local school. The event aimed at introducing the concept of solar lighting to the community, as well as to see how interested the community was in learning how to build these lights for themselves. By the end of the event, we were able to see first-hand the advantages of solar lighting to the people’s lives, as well as evaluate our performance as a team. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that every single member of the community was as involved us our team in building and installing the lights. The pilot was nothing short of successful, and seeing all the joy and gratitude expressed by members of the community only served to get the team even more excited for December.

The Solution

The ultimate solution to the issue would be a sustainable and inexpensive one, which is why the solar alternative will be beneficial to rural communities in Ghana.

The immediate goal of this project is to provide 100 homes with this cost-effective and long-lasting source of lighting in December. The aim is to get as much hands-on experience as possible, hence the Liter of Light Ghana team will be assembling the equipment under the supervision of electricians and engineers. The lights will then be taken to the various target communities and installed. Not all the assembling will be done prior to the project day. The team intends on making some materials available to teach the people of the Trawa community how to build these solar lanterns.

What does the project offer to the community?

Our combination of day, night and street lights provide a cheap, clean alternative to communities that totally removes the financial burden that kerosene places on these people who are largely very poor subsistence farmers at NO cost to them at all.

This project also significantly reduces the carbon footprints that each of these communities leave. Even though the CO2 and black carbon each of these communities emit from their use of kerosene lamps may seem insignificant, collectively kerosene is a major contributor to our total carbon dioxide pollution as a nation. We can contribute to reducing that significantly.

Our goal Is to raise $10,000 before the project date.This will go toward purchasing the materials needed to assemble the solar lanterns needed to light up a 100 homes, as well as 10 streetlights for community. Other costs include paying electricians and carpenters (who will be installing solar panels on roofs of homes), as well as logistics and transportation.

Risks & Challenges

One of our main challenges from the start of the project was ensuring that we had quality materials to build these lanterns. After extensive research we found and partnered with a Ghanaian-based company (Rikal Ghana Ltd) specializing in solar electrical products. To ensure each component would work efficiently as planned, we carried out a pilot project in a small community called Akorlikope, where we installed some of these lanterns with the aim of testing their efficiency and durability. The project was successful and the lanterns worked exactly how they were supposed to, and they continue to function well even till date. 

One challenge we'll need to address for the project will be ensuring that we have the most quality materials for the project. This will involve ensuring quality control throughout the project. Along with engineers from Rikal, we will be performing quality checks at every stage in the project to ensure the lanterns meet the quality standards to be as sustainable as possible.

The long-term plan/Sustainability

There’s an old adage that goes,

“give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime..”

There is no greater gesture of service than teaching someone in need of something to be self-sufficient and sustainable in producing whatever it is they lack.  

One of the issues the team faced with past service projects was that these projects were not sufficiently sustainable. The team usually made donations of food and/or toiletries to the needy, or spent the day with kids at a local orphanage. Although these projects helped those in need, they were never sustainable enough. The donation of food items, which served these children well in the short term, was eventually going to run out, and the thought of that was unsettling. The team vowed from that point on to adopt a more sustainable approach to serving our community. The Liter of light ‘project 100 homes’ aims to fulfill this desire, and is our most sustainable project yet. The long-term goal would be to equip volunteers from each community with the know-how to be able to build solar lanterns themselves with the aim of fostering civic engagement and independence within the communities.