Canadian Students Bring Light to Cameroon

A group of Canadian college students are lending a hand to bring light to some villages in Africa. During February, four Canadian students traveled to Cameroon under a partnership with International Children’s Awareness, a non-profit organization, to promote solar energy use.

The students worked in the Ndumbin region of Cameroon to help make villages more sustainable by promoting the use of solar energy to provide lighting. The students helped the villagers to set up a small business that sells and installs solar lighting systems in houses using a system of small loans. The use of the small loans makes it possible for villagers to use the money that would have been spent on kerosene and use it for the solar lighting systems instead.

The majority of villagers use kerosene lanterns for light which can be dangerous and pose health problems; breathing in the fumes from the kerosene lamps is equivalent to inhaling the smoke from two packs of cigarettes per day according to World Bank estimates.

The four students paid their own way to Cameroon and the money for the lighting systems was raised from private businesses. The lighting systems cost about $140 each and are expected to last for over 25 years.