9 December 2009 | FXB Celebrates the "Festival of Lights" by Launching a Campaign to Buy Solar Lamps for 99 Families in Uganda
This holiday season, the FXB Festival of Lights is bringing brighter futures to hundreds of children in Uganda. During the celebration of Hanukkah, from December 11-19, FXB will be collecting donations of $18 to provide D.Light solar-powered lamps to 99 beneficiary families in the FXB-Villages who do not have electricity.
Solar-powered lamps are safe, clean alternatives to the kerosene lamps used by most families in Uganda, and offer many benefits for their users:
- D.light lamps provide a light bright enough to provide longer and more effective study hours for children, which directly lead to increased learning and higher test scores.
- The cost savings for these families can be significant, as families typically spend up to 30% of their monthly income only on kerosene oil.
- D.light users have reported an increase in monthly income by as much as 50% from extra lighted work hours.
In addition to the increases in productivity that these lamps can provide, they also improve the health and safety of families, their communities, and our world. Kerosene lamps are a key contributor to indoor air pollution, which claims the lives of 1.5 million people each year, over half of which are under the age of five. D.light lamps are safe to use and eliminate the risk of accidental fires, and each lamp effectively reduces global carbon emissions on the scale of tens of thousands of tons.
If this pilot initiative to bring solar lights to 99 families in Uganda is successful, FXB will seek distributors of similar lamps in other countries where it has programs.
More information about the FXB Festival of Lights is available at www.fxb.org/festivaloflights.html. Community groups interested in learning more can contact FXB USA at 212-697-3566 or usa@fxb.org.