TERI North America has joined hands with TERI India to brighten the lives of the power impoverished across the world through Lighting a Billion Lives campaign. A commitment to this effect was made at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, held in New York during 26–28 September 2007. The campaign is inspired by TERI’s commitment to global sustainable development and creation of innovative solutions for a better tomorrow. Through the campaign, TERI plans to take solar lighting devices around the world to rural communities that lack quality lighting systems and have to depend on traditional resources like dung cakes, firewood, crop residue and kerosene for their various energy needs.
Inadequate lighting not only is an impediment
to progress and development opportunities, but also has an adverse impact
on the environment and health of billions of people. TERI aims to provide
200 million solar lanterns to rural households across the world, touching
one billion lives, which presently use kerosene or biomass for meeting
their most basic lighting needs.
We invite like-minded individuals,
corporations, bilateral and multilateral funding organizations, community
development associations, educational institutions and NGOs (non-governmental
organizations) across the United States of America to partner with us
in our mission to take a billion people from darkness to light to give
them a promise of much better life!
It is ironic that while many of us have access to the
state-of-the-art technologies in our everyday lives, billions of people
across the developing world continue to stay without even access to one
of the most basic amenities such as light! A total of 1.5 billion people
in the world lack access to electricity and 25% of these live in India.
It is widely acknowledged that even small amounts of electricity can go
a long way in improving their living standard and the rate of socio-economic
development. The Lighting a Billion Lives campaign is a promise for better
life as it displaces polluting kerosene and paraffin lanterns with solar
lighting devices with clean and better illumination, thereby creating
conducive environment for education and income generating activities at
household and village level.
Lighting a Billion Lives is a sponsorship-and partnership-driven
campaign that works through a mix of solar lighting products: (a) solar
lanterns, which go to villages and (b) solar torches, which go to our
campaign sponsors as an acknowledgement of their support for the campaign,
and as a symbol of promoting green products in our everyday lives. TERI
will put in place a committee comprising experts and representatives
from corporations/sponsors to supervise the progress of the campaign,
and for the transparency and effective monitoring of the campaign.
The campaign is based on an entrepreneurial model of energy
service delivery, which has been developed and successfully implemented
by TERI. This will involve provision of solar lanterns to rural communities
across the world by
setting up solar lantern charging stations in villages and distributing
charged lanterns to households for a nominal fee;
providing
lanterns to facilitate and advance ongoing programmes on education,
health, and livelihoods;
identifying
and training rural entrepreneurs to operate the charging stations and
provide repair and maintenance services; and
facilitating
creation of energy enterprises on supply and demand side.
" In addition to contributing to the enhancement
of livelihood options and sustainable development by providing income-generation
opportunities
to rural people around the world, a vital aspect of the Lighting a Billion
Lives campaign is the positive impact it would have on the environment
in
the form of carbon benefits. Each solar lantern from the campaign will
save 40-60 liters of kerosene each year, thereby mitigating 319 lbs
(145
kg) of CO (carbon dioxide) emissions per year. Alternatively, each lantern
2 will save 280 kWh (kilowatt-hour) of coal-based electricity every
year,
thereby mitigating about 617 lbs (280 kg) of CO emissions per year {Taking
into account AT&C (aggregate technical and commercial) losses}
TERI North America’s work with the Lighting a Billion Lives Campaign has already had success, raising and leveraging the funds to light up 24 villages in India in the 2008-2009 period. This is just the beginning!
The campaign allows individuals as well as organizations
to join hands with us in bringing light to the lives of billions and
contributing towards sustainable development through various sponsorship
opportunities. These include
Individual sponsors
Organizational
sponsors
This is only the cost of one solar CFL lantern (up to
two LED). TERI shall decide the number of lanterns to be put in a village
as per the demand from the rural communities. The cost of transportation,
insurance, training and other allied activities which TERI undertakes
for a fully fledged solar charging station is not included in this sponsorship
amount. This is just to enable people from every walk of life to contribute
in whatever capacity they can.
This represents a complete package wherein TERI installs
a full fledged Solar Charging Station with more than 50 lanterns (depending
on the CFL/ LED lantern models) in a partially or un-electrified village
in close collaboration with its grassroots Partner Organizations. This
includes cost towards following specific activities:
1. Identification of local partners
2. Identification of village and entrepreneur
3. Scoping study/ feasibility assessment
4. Hardware and equipment
5. Transport and freight charges
6. Insurance
7. Onsite installation and commissioning
8. Annual maintenance contract
9. Training and capacity building
10. Post installation monitoring
11. Outreach and awareness generation
12. Other taxes and duties
For Companies dealing with solar/ lighting/ devices: (a)
Help us in providing components, products, systems, technologies; (b)
collaborate with TERI in joint R&D and product customization; and
(c) help us in executing the campaign through network of dealers and
distributors. Contact us for more details.
For Grass-roots organizations/ NGOs: Facilitate our efforts
in sustaining the campaign by working with communities in generating
awareness, developing new livelihoods, and identifying and motivating
potential solar entrepreneurs around the world.
For Micro-finance institutions: Help us in financing new
income-generation activities for self-help groups aided through enhanced
illumination.
Come join hands
with us to make this vision a reality!
Ms Annapurna Vancheswaran
TERI North America
55 Whitney Ave
New Haven, Connecticut, 06511
E-mail:
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