Project Summary
How would sustainable, safe, and adequate lighting transform the lives of villagers that have never had it?
We are on the quest to document, through film and photographs, the transformation that light will bring to a village for a better life. The film will act as a prototype for similar lighting projects by garnering the necessary support for replication in many other villages that would also benefit.
The Documentary and The Village Lighting Project are two separate initiatives. It is intended, however, that this film will benefit The Lighting Project by raising awareness and inspiring future project support. As the prototype project is expanded to help many other villages, it will greatly benefit from the publicity generated by this film.
"In the Himalayan mountains there are tens of thousands of scattered villages and homes. Most of these settlements are still without electricity and the villagers are extremely poor. They are living on the margins of society, being barely able to sustain themselves. Most of us take for granted the electricity in our homes and the ability to turn on a switch and have nice lighting for a myriad of uses like cooking or reading at night. In these villages, artificial light is available in the form of kerosene wick lamps. The light is very dim, the kerosene is expensive, and the smoke from the kerosene irritates the eyes and lungs which creates a huge health issue. The open flame also poses a fire risk.”
 “Our need for light is a given, and the current lighting in these homes is in inadequate, expensive, and injurious to one’s health. Watching villager women struggle to cook in the dark or students trying to do homework by the minimal candle power of a kerosene wick lamp is heartbreaking.
"Can we come up with an affordable and better lighting alternative for these villagers that cost less than the current cost of kerosene without the problems of kerosene? Yes.
"Assuming the technological and village organizational hurdles can be surmounted; I think there is tremendous scope for replication of the project in thousands of other locations throughout the Himalayas. This would help achieve the goal of providing more and better lighting at a lower cost than kerosene lighting, while eliminating the problems associated with kerosene." - Mitchell Silver, Project Creator
Photos © Mitchell Silver |
