Our Project starting 2012 is: "Hello, I am WakaWaka. I bring light to dark places. I suck up sunlight like no other and give back 16 hours of bright reading light. And I have a lot more in store for you. I teach kids about solar light and other stuff. I ‘Shine Bright’ when you need me to. I am the best and coolest solar LED lamp."
Stanley Rugut says 600 of his pupils already have solar lights and he wants to help them buy more as they enable students to read in the evening, do more homework and get better results:
Student Enoch says he able to read for three extra hours a day thanks to his solar lamp "Because of the light we have double the number going to good schools," he says. "At 700 Kenyan shillings a light is the same price as a hen."
In recent exams star pupil Enoch came 55th out of all of the students in Kenya. His ability to study improved considerably when his mother purchased a solar lamp.
"Before there was this light I used to read up until seven only, but when it was brought I read up to 10," Enoch, who hopes to one day be a doctor, explains.
It is about health too. Most homes in rural Africa are lit by paraffin lamps, and being exposed to an evening's lighting is thought to be as damaging to health as smoking 40 cigarettes.
The World Bank estimates that breathing kerosene fumes is the equivalent of smoking two packets of cigarettes a day and two-thirds of adult females with lung cancer in developing nations are non-smokers.
The United Nations and many NGO's want to see them replaced by solar, and it now seems to be happening.
With your Help, Dance2Learn will be at the beginning of this life-saving, life-enhancing project!