Luci Solar Lamp: The Trip - Day Two

The following day I prepared to give a presentation to a large group of fishmen during their lunch break.

Shop set up outside the shore for Pamban fishing memorabilia 

Preparing for the presentation 

Crowd of fisherman after the presentation

Luci Solar Lamp: The Trip - Day One

I arrived at Rameshwaram in the early hours of Christmas day. I brought 20 Luci lamps with me to test out in the surrounding fishing villages. Since no schools or organizations were meeting that day, our first presentation was given to a small group of women in a widow-support group.

Meeting with the women's group

Following the presentation, one of the widows offered to test out the light for a month in her house. We visited her house/shack near the sea and met her family. They graciously accepted us into their home and served us a meal.

 Speaking with a local widow in her house

Later that night we presented about Luci to a local catholic school that was having Christmas mass. We donated two of the lamps to the school after the mass.

Presenting about the lamp 

Passing around the cooker

Preparation for Solar Lights Trip

I've decided to bring solar lamps to Rameshwaram during my trip to India this December. Our plans to buy the solar lamps from a local Indian distributor fell through at the last moment. Unfortunately they could not provide the quantity of lamps that we wanted to buy from them, so I decided to go a different route and order and ship them there myself.

The lamps I choose are called Luci Solar Lanterns, manufactured by the New York City-based social entrepreneurship firm, MPowerD. I've placed an order for 5 of them to test out, and if they are durable and reliable enough I'll place the full order.

Brainstorming Solar Lights

Malli and I have been talking over lighting in Rameshwaram schools for a couple of months. It seems as though a major stumbling block for rural educators is teaching in low light conditions. School children in rural India often have to help their families earn money by assisting in fishing or farming. This forces the school day to be shifted to the early morning, where low light conditions dominate.

The teachers that we have been communicating with in Rameshwaram and Danushkodi have insisted that there is a definite need for alternate lighting. Since the solar cooker project seems to have stalled at finding a new manufacturer, I have been thinking about re-appropriating those funds for this new solar lighting project. Opening up a dialogue between Malli, Dr. Elango, and myself will hopefully get the ball rolling on getting the specifics of this project.

Plans for the Year

I had some extra free time after a hectic fall term, so I've started to think some issues that I can tackle at Pamban over the spring and summer.

Malli and I have started brainstorming new ideas for the coming year. She helped me get in touch with Dr. Elango an engineer who has been working on various sustainable living products. We have been discussing the feasibility of solar lights for the villages of Pamban. Hopefully we can come up with a proposal to get a project up and running for this summer, so I can apply for some grants that are offered by my school and by my town.

The solar cooker project has run into some trouble as our manufacturer can not longer afford to make the cookers at a subsidized cost. Luckily we still have more than 80% of the grant fund still available, and the designs are still usable, so finding a new manufacturer should not be too problematic. Our old manufacturer has offered to help us look for a new one, and we still have 7 working cookers out in the villages so far, so we are on the right track.

SunRice Cooker: The Trip - Day Five

The final day of my trip arrived. We planned on visiting four different villages in one day, so we could talk to as many people as we could. Instead of the usual routine of giving a presentation and then setting up the cookers, we decided on a different approach for the most busy day.

We drove to all the villages and quickly set up a cooker at each one, and left. Then, we would revisit each village and have a small Q&A about the SunRice cookers while we demonstrated the devices capabilities. 

At the end of the day Dr. Satish and I resolved to bringing around ten cookers every month until the grant money ran out.

SunRice Cooker: The Trip - Day Four

We planned to go to the fishing villages near the south side of the island. My aunt told me that we would be seeing the families of some of the children that we had met in our first presentation. I was excited to see if the children would remember my presentation and how the SunRice cooker worked.

Setting up the cookers.

Our first scheduled meeting was at 9 a.m. Our car pulled up next to a row of ramshackle huts and as soon as we got out, a group of around ten children ran up to us jumping and yelling about how we were the "solar cooker guys"!

It was nice to see that they had remembered us, so my aunt and I took a bunch of pictures with them.

We set up the cookers, and gave the presentation outside at one of the halls of their temple.

When we finished our presentation we came back to find that the kids had already taken out the cooked rice and started eating it. They were so enthusiastic that we let them show off the cookers to the rest of the people there.