Lifestyle-India-economy-energy by N. Suresh Indian men light up a kerosene petromax lamp in their home in the tribal hamlet of Wada, in Thane on the outskirts of Mumbai on November 18, 2007. (Pal Pillai/AFP/Getty Images)
And Dave said, “Let there be light.”
Trekking among snow-capped mountains in Nepal’s Thorung La pass, Dr. Dave Irvine-Halliday remembers being struck by the poverty there as much as he was by the natural beauty.
The villagers lived very basic, antiquated lives. People were overworked, underfed, and had few opportunities. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of them looked old for their age.
Being a professor of electrical engineering, he noticed something else, too.
“I looked into the window of a schoolhouse, and it was just so dark,” Irvine-Halliday explains from his home in Calgary. “I wondered how kids could read and study.”
Light Up the World is dedicated to illuminating the lives of the 1.6 billion people who have no electricity.
In a remote area of the country and with little money, the villagers there had no electricity. They relied on dim kerosene lamps that were expensive to refill and gave off toxic fumes.
So Irvine-Halliday set off to help, eager to find a safe and affordable lighting alternative for those Nepalese villagers. What he didn’t realize is that he’d soon be embarking down a much larger path, one of development and empowerment.
After two years of tinkering, Irvine-Halliday was back in Nepal to test a solar-powered white LED lighting system, one he developed to fit the needs of impoverished communities. The trial run was an immediate success. Before long, locals were basking in something they had never seen before—indoor light.
“The response was incredible,” Irvine-Halliday says. “People were in tears, begging us not to take the light away.”
For the first time, children could study at night without getting sick from dangerous kerosene fumes. Parents could work full days knowing they didn’t have to cook and do chores before sundown. Disposable income could go toward food, instead of refilling those dirty kerosene lamps.
Literally with the flick of a switch, lives changed.
So began Light Up the World, an organization started by Irvine-Halliday and dedicated to illuminating the lives of the 1.6 billion people who have no electricity. In the decade since those first tests in Nepal, 17,000 homes in 51 countries have been lit.
In fact, Irvine-Halliday’s white LED lights can now be found from Afghanistan to Zambia.
It’s difficult to imagine just what this means. For most of us, simple indoor lighting is something we take for granted. But for someone who has never had it, light opens up a whole new world.
Light Up the World’s projects are often greeted by singing and dancing villagers, people who are overjoyed to finally “have eyes,” as one put it. At an orphanage in Tibet, organizers had to turn off their new lights because the children were so excited they didn’t want to sleep.
“It’s so emotional,” Irvine-Halliday explains. “On almost every trip, you’re rubbing your eyes, your heart rate goes up.”
But Light Up the World is no charity. Instead, it prescribes to an increasingly innovative form of development where recipients are not given handouts. Instead, they are expected to be active participants.
Villagers purchase their lights for as little as $150. That may seem expensive, but when you consider that families in developing countries can spend one-third or more of their income on kerosene for their lamps, solar-powered white LEDs are a welcome financial relief.
In two years or less, most villagers are able to pay off their lights just from the money they save on kerosene. And with no further fuel purchases needed, the savings continue long after the lights are paid in full.
What’s more, Light Up the World trains locals to install and repair the lights, creating jobs where there were few before.
“We have to get these villages to light themselves,” Irvine-Halliday says. “Ultimately, it has to be a market-driven solution.”
That approach, pioneered by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, is now being duplicated around the world. Partnerships like these give impoverished villagers a sense of pride, empowerment, and ownership over their own future—something mere aid cannot do.
Most importantly, it shows that global poverty is not simply a lack of income. It’s a lack of opportunity.
These days, Irvine-Halliday has turned his attention to improving his white LED technology. He’s even founded a company in India, where a staggering 400 million people live without electricity, which he hopes will produce even better lights at half the cost.
Despite his success, Irvine-Halliday sounds more like a man who’s just getting started.
“I hope I do this until the day I die,” he says. “Once you start thinking about this, as human beings, it gets to you. For a few dollars, spent in the right place and in the right way, you can change peoples’ lives.”
Chris Mallinos is a Toronto-based journalist whose work has appeared on six continents and in seven languages. You can reach him at www.chrismallinos.com.
