Poverty Reduction in a Panamanian Village Through LED Promotion

This project is based in the indigenous village of Soloy, Panama. In the semi-autonomous territory of the Ngobe-Bugle people, Soloy is greatly underserved, and lacks the most basic infrastructure, including electricity.

Until recently, most people used incandescent flashlights at night. Incandescent flashlights are so inefficient that the batteries need to be replaced 2-3 times per week, representing about 10-20% of the average family's income.

A switch to LED flashlights enormously reduces the use of batteries, and hence, saves families a great deal of money. This project promotes the use of LED flashlights in Soloy through direct promotion and assistance to local businesses.

Project mission:

To promote the use of LED flashlights in the Ngobe-Bugle indigenous territory in Panama, in order to reduce the use of disposable batteries, thereby alleviating an environmental problem and increasing usable income.

Potential impact:

Each LED flashlight saves each family at the very least $63/year in battery expenses. If 1000 retrofits were put into use, more than $63,000 goes back into the pockets of people living in poverty. This is a great return on investment. If we were able to scale up our project to other villages and implement similar programs and replace 10,000 incandescent bulbs, the return would be more than $630,000. And if we were finally able to reach the whole Comarca and replace 50,000 incandescent bulbs, the net savings would be $3,150,000. That is, 3.15 million dollars every year.

Required resources:

1. Total project needs: $10,000

Our sponsors:

Blum Center: awarded a $1000 grant to the project instigation plus one $800 travel grant
Bears Breaking Boundaries: $5000

Links to other projects by the same organization:

• http://medo.awardspace.com

Additional info:

We are working with a local nonprofit, Medo: http://medo.awardspace.com/