Meet the Board
Meet the Board
MARA CONSERVATION
encouraging empathy for other life
MLP Team in Morocco
Advisors in Morocco
What light makes possible
Handheld Solar
Where we work in Kenya, many families live in small earthen homes with no power or light. How can people cook indoors? How can students continue learning past dark?
We began our love of handhold solar in 2021 during the pandemic. Like their counterparts all over the world, students at Mara Girls Leadership School in Talek were sequestered at home for 8 months. Their earth homes have no light and books were nowhere to be found, so continuing their education was a real challenge. We responded by providing a Solar Home Library for the 48 families from Mara Girls. As well as receiving a robust lantern, each girl received a Student Encyclopedia for all subjects at her grade level and the family received a small library of teen and children's books in English and Kiswahili. The teachers from Mara Girls paid visits with assignments to keep the students on track with their subjects. When the girls returned to school after the pandemic, they brought their Encyclopedia with them — while the lantern and pleasure books remained with their family back home.
Outcome: All 48 Mara Girls students continued their studies at home during the lockdown — and all progressed to high school, extraordinary at that moment in time. We now include portable solar reading lights in libraries for students to check out with a book.
With her dreams, hard work, and Solar Library, Nelly was "topping in her class" and progressed to one of the best high schools in Kenya.
Today, we include portable solar reading lights in the Manyatta Libraries and in boarding school libraries where students have no light at night.
