Empowered by the Light

Puerto Rico: Empowered by the Light completed two projects in Puerto Rico in 2023 and made significant progress on a third. EBL installed solar and energy storage (batteries) on a community center in a very poor area of Puerto Rico that has no basic infrastructure and on a childrens home in the southwest corner of the island. EBL also made significant progress on a pilot effort using solar+storage to power cold storage for a farming cooperative on the west side of the island. Amazon: Empowered by the Light had solar microgrids installed for two indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon displacing diesel as the primary source of electricity for an institute sharing indigenous wisdom with the world and working to reforest large tracks of land in the Amazon and for a community of more than 800 members of the Ashaninka tribe. Africa: Empowered by the Light installed off-grid solar-powered water systems (pumping, storage and irrigation) for two poor and remote communities in Zambia benefitting more than 1400 people. In each community, the solar water systems are managed by a womens collective that also oversees the gardens irrigated by water pumped by the system. These systems save the women significant time they used to spend walking to and from the river hauling water. The systems also keep the women safer since theyre no longer having to risk encounters with hippos, crocodiles and elephants while collecting water from the river. Empowered by the Light also installed off-grid solar and storage on Chishi Community School, a small school in a remote part of Zambia enabling students to study after dark and increasing student enrollment by more than 80%.