About the "LED Lantern Replaces Kerosene" Project
Identifying the Project need:
- The LED Project will provide 500 LED Lanterns with Solar charging panels to villages in India that currently do not have electricity.
- These will include Lanterns for Homes, Schools, Businesses, Government and Religious buildings.
- Currently the primary source of light at night for the people in these village are from kerosene lanterns.
- Kerosene tends to be expensive to operate and therefore is used sparingly.
- Kerosene is also dangerous in that they are the cause of many home fires and debilitating burns on small children, frequently leading to deaths.
- With the use of our LED Lanterns it is anticipated that the villagers’ health will improve with the reduction of indoor air pollution, which causes acute lower respiratory infections, one of the biggest killers among children under five years old in India.
- The LED lantern will allow the people to use morel ighting, allowing children to study more, thus improving literacy in the village.
- Currently the average rural household in India spends 7.4% of their income on fuel and lighting, more than three times as much as they spend on education.
- The money currently spent for lighting will now be saved and will be used for more productive village projects.
- Studies have shown that families with access to improved lighting have up to a 30% increase in income levels due to increased productivity by allowing adults to engage in income generating activities after dark.
- Finally, the people will have a safer and cleaner indoor environment, while virtually eliminating climate changing CO2 emissions in the environment.
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Identifying the Projects intended beneficiaries:
Providing LED Light will:
- Improve Health in the communities server by reducing indoor air pollution, which causes acute lower respiratory infections, one of the biggest killers among children under 5 in India.
- Access to Education by allowing children to study more effectively with higher quality and brighter light for reading & writing.
- Save Lives Kerosene is known to cause thousands of fires, burns, and deaths annually.
- More Savings - The average rural household in India spends 7.4% of their income on fuel and lighting, over three times more than is spent on education.
- Higher Income studies have show that families with access to improved lighting have up to a 30% increase in income levels due to increased productivity by allowing adults to engage in income generating activities at night.
- Help Pollution and Climate Change - safer and cleaner indoor environments are promoted by eliminating kerosene fumes while virtually eliminating climate changing CO2 and Carbon emissions into the environment.
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Identifying the length of time to complete the project:
We do not presume that Rotary, at the District and Club level, will complete the project in a single RI Matching Grant year since the statistics are so daunting. Instead, we hope to lead the way.
Consider these statistics for India alone:
- There are 236,004 villages with 500 people or less in India
- There are an average of 5 people in each household requiring 100 LED Lanterns per village (with only 1 per household)
- The project would require 2,360,040 LED Lanterns just to cover these small villages - much more to include larger villages.
- At the projected cost of $US30 per LED Light we would need to generate $70,801,200.00, and this for just India!
- Instead we propose a multi year approach starting in the first year with 3 International (US) Clubs partnered with 3 Host (Indian) Partner Clubs/Districts. Each Host Partners is expected to identify participating villages.
- We expect this initial proposal to demonstrate feasibility, need, interest in the US, India and the rest of the world.
- Once proven we believe that lower cost solutions follow (our proposed LD Lantern vendor (d.light design) is in the process of bringing into production a lower cost Light) and a growing interest of other NGO's will help to expand the "LED Lanterns for Kerosene" Project, for years to come.
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Thus we are engaged in an initial 1 year project (which we can handle with the aid of the TRF Matching Grant Program) as follows:
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Identifying how the benefiting community will maintain the project after the grant funding has been fully expended:
- The only parts requiring replacement will be the battery used to power the LED Lantern. The Batteries have a life expectancy of one to two years. Since the LED Lanterns are totally "Solid State Devices" containing no moving parts, maintenance will be the simple replacement of the Battery.
- The Host Club will be expected to maintain contact with the villages and arrange to either repair or replace any defective lights with like items from d.light India's office in Delhi, India.
- The Host Club will help the villages develop a “lighting cooperative” to maintain a revolving pool of batteries and lanterns in the villages. They will use this pool of batteries and lanterns to insure continuous coverage during the one year warranty period. After the pilot period of one year the replacement items will be made available at cost to the villagers.
- The villages will pay into the coop a sum that will be considerably less then their current cost of Kerosene and maintaining the Kerosene Lanterns to insure the financial stability of the coop, insure a feeling of ownership, and the appearance of "free light" (a requirement of d.light design).
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- Identify the activities of the host and international partners in implementing the project. What will the Rotarians who are members of the partner clubs do during the project?
- The Host Partners are expected to identify villages in need (which has been done as of 9/1/08 - Sutanther and Tigariya Khada, in Utter Pradesh), contact the village leaders to identify number of households who will become of the recipients of the LED Lanterns, Identify the number of school and school rooms, identify the number of Temples and the number of LED Lanerns appropriate, Idnetify the number of Business'/shops/etc. that will require Lanterns and raise funds from their members and other willing contributors recruited by members.
- The International Partners will administrate the Project and raise funds from their members and other willing contributors recruited by member.
- The International Partner will submit The Rotary Foundation Matching Grant Application and arrange for identification of the required approvals and sign offs from:
- Host Partner Primary Club/District and
- Primary Contact
- Project Contact #2
- Project Contact #3
- International Partner Club/District
- Primary Contact
- Project Contact #2
- Project Contact #3
- The International Partner will also
- Identify Vendor for the LED Lanterns
and obtain ProForma statement (to include Price, shipping cost, customs fees, and any other miscelaneous costs).
- d.light design of Mountain View, CA are the designers and manufactures of the Nova 100, the selected LED Lantern and Solar Panel, for the project
- (d.light design has been identified and is cooperating in the Demostration Project.
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