Monique and her solar powered light and phone charger

Today Monique Alfris, an Australian engineer working in India and Asia, gave me a solar powered light for my tent.

Monique has set up a business and a program in India with her business partner, Kat and Jamie in India and Emma and Ben in Australia, to sell the lights to people who live in tents, shacks and are very poor.

Since 2011 Monique has trialled various lights and ways to sell them and she’s written to me about her plans:

“Thanks for mentioning us in your blog Mike!

The light we’re giving you for your new home-tent is a light we are providing to people living in tents in Bangalore, India. The families we work with don’t have access to electricity – so their kids can’t study at night, and they can’t work, store food, or access information.

Even though these families live in tents and don’t have access to electricity, they still have amazing amounts of drive and determination. Our social business start-up Pollinate Energy taps into this entrepreneurial spirit, using simple, locally manufactured solar systems to provide light to these families living in poverty.

These renewable energy systems are designed to cost no more than what these families spend on energy at the moment. We also train local entrepreneurs – providing them with income generating opportunities to sell, finance, install and maintain the systems.

What these local entrepreneurs need is help to set up these businesses. They need capital, training and most importantly, moral support. We are doing this by living and operating out of Bangalore, partnering with local institutions with amazing amounts of expertise in this area and also by bringing Australia students over on our Fellowship program.

These students provide moral and financial support to our new entrepreneurs – while experiencing what it is like to live and work in India. We’re actually taking our next cohort over in January – applications close Monday November 26th. If anyone is interested they can find out more at www.pollinateenergy.org….

If anyone is interested in finding out more about our light and how it works they can email me (Monique) atinfo@pollinateenergy.org”

Going with the sun is fun, yes?

Isn’t it renewing when we hear of stories like Monique’s?

M