Solar Lights Changing Lives

One Million Lights partnered with Desh Seva Samiti, an Indian nonprofit NGO, and Paadhai, an international nonprofit NGO to distribute lights in a number of tribal regions in Maharashtra, India.

Here’s a little bit about our new partner: Desh Seva Samiti is a strictly non-profit organization, deeply committed to social work. It was registered in February 2005. It was the outcome of discussions held among a group of citizens who were concerned about the increasing impoverishment of the people. There are still people in a metropolis like Mumbai, which is regarded as the commercial capital of India, who are condemned to darkness because they cannot afford the cost of a cataract operation. There are thousands of rag-pickers who compete for a morsel of food with dogs and cats at roadside garbage bins in hour cities. On the one hand we find the sensex zooming skywards raking in millions of rupees profits to players in the stock market, while on the other and there are lakhs of children who go to bed hungry daily across the country. Millions of Indians go blind every year because of nutritional deficiencies. About 75,000 people die in road accidents and double that number are injured. Female foeticide and sex determination tests are rampant. The number of people below the poverty line is increasing in absolute terms every year.

We at Desh Seva Samiti (DSS) have decided to make our own small contribution for the upliftment of our less fortunate brothers and sisters irrespective of considerations of caste or creed.