According to the NYT "At least two cities reported major devastation: Les Cayes and Jeremie. Phone lines were down in Petit Trou de Nippes, the epicenter of the quake, and no news emerged immediately from that city, leaving Haitian officials to fear for the worst. A landslide, triggered by the quake, cut off access to the road to Jeremie."
Doctors said the two main hospitals in Les Cayes and the main hospital in Jeremie had been overwhelmed.”
Vulnerable communities, and particularly their children and young women, are the most at risk after a natural disaster. When darkness falls, there is exponential risk of kidnappings and assault. This was the reason why we invented the SolarPuff, to help women and children light their nights with safe, clean Solights and eliminate kerosene lighting. We also knew that in regions of poverty most spend up to 30% of their income on Kerosene lighting, which could be better used for food, clothing or education. Solight is already working with two partnering non-profits, World Central Kitchen and Heartstone Village. With a community-based approach, they have spent the last 11 years working to bring sustainable resilience to the challenges Haiti faces.
In 2010 we went to Haiti to test our first handmade prototypes of the Solar Puff and we gave them to the women farmers that worked the land, most of them had 5 kids at home in a small one room house with a kitchen outside. Amonnia Belle is one of the first women we gave our Solarpuff.
(You can see the video by clicking the picture.)
Did you know Haiti helped us in the Civil War?
Haitian soldiers came to help us fight for freedom during the civil war? The Haitian Revolution created the second independent country in the Americas after the United States became independent in 1783. With no phones or internet the news of the revolution in Haiti rippled throughout the lands all the way back to France, where the news inspired the French revolution. It altered the geopolitics of empire in the Americas; threatened to disrupt the trans-Atlantic slave trade and plantation economy; precipitated a massive, global movement of refugees, and offered a powerful example of collective action, and hope.
The country never really recovered after the earthquake in 2010, and it has remained mired in economic underdevelopment and insecurity. A cholera outbreak in 2016, linked to U.N. peacekeepers, killed at least 10,000 Haitians and sickened another 800,000.
We started this company because we wanted to make lives better here and abroad. Here in the US we can use these Solights to lower our carbon footprint and light our homes and charge our phones. In far away lands, this is a life saving necessity after a disaster strikes. Whether you live in Haiti or Houston, design matters and we believe our lights give hope to the ones that need it most.
Thank you for being light warriors, together we will light up the world.