Kopernik Provides Solar Lights To Poor Indonesian Communities

Kopernik, an Indonesia-based non-profit organisation, is giving the gift of light to poor Indonesian communities, one household at a time. The organisation provided solar lanterns and fuel-efficient biomass cookstoves to families in Indonesia.

According to ABC.net , 1.3 billion people in Indonesia live with no electricity and use kerosene lamps for light, while 3 billion people use indoor wood-fired stoves to cook their meals. Kopernik's goal is to change these practices because these encourage deforestation and result to indoor air pollution that lead to 4 million deaths annually. The organisation's campaigns have been going on since 2010 and have helped 233,634 people in 21 countries.

Tomohiro Hamakawa, Kopernik's co-founder, noted to the ABC: "A typical Australian home has over 60 appliances running on electricity and gas. The typical home in the most remote part of the developing world has none. It's easy to take for granted all the technologies that make our lives easier."

Hamakawa said that a $20 D-light solar lantern made by his organisation "pays for itself" within a few months, as families no longer need to buy kerosene for gas lamps and are able to save as much as $100 monthly. He also said that carbon emissions are reduced by half, thanks to these lanterns. Meanwhile, the $30 biomass cookstove from the company uses 80 percent less wood than cooking over fire and produces virtually no smoke.

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Kopernik teamed up with Panasonic in February to hold a lantern donation and lighting ceremony in the mountain-bound village of Sone in Indonesia's West Timor. The organisation's recent project involves a micro-entrepreneurship program called "Tas Mantap" (Awesome Bag) for women from Tuban, East Java, in partnership with ExxonMobil. It also has ongoing fundraising projects for communities in India and Bangladesh.

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