Lights to the Community, Laos

The "Lights to the Community" project aims to install solar powered lights in Laos' remote villages. These villages are sometimes kilometres off the national grid and don’t get electricity at all.

Khiri Reach has been contacting state and provincial officials in Laos to find out when specific villages will be connected to the grid. If it is a long time, Khiri Reach will decide if, where and how we might provide electricity to the village.

By lightening up village schools, teachers and children can work longer hours and use the school for community meetings in the evening. One small solar panel producing 50 watts provides enough power for two to four light bulbs. In many small villages, school consists of one or two rooms where all the different classes are held at once or by rotating schedules in the morning and in the afternoon.

Villages also need light at other communal places such as water wells, medical health centres (which need refrigerators to store medicine) and community houses. These places are used by most people of the village at regular intervals. Everyone benefits from electricity.

The "Lights to the community" project is conducted by Khiri Reach in close cooperation with Sunlabob, a solar power infrastructure company which supplies its technical know-how to the Lights to the Community project.