March 14, 2017

My name is Tyler Su and I am an eighth grader at Woodland School in Portola Valley, California. Every year, the eighth graders do a year-round project called Capstone, when students choose a problem to research and improve. For my Capstone, I am doing Lack of Electricity in Remote Areas. While I was doing research for my project, I came across One Million Lights. It was funny because the founder of OML lives in my neighborhood! When I first started my research, I didn’t know much, but I then later learned some devastating facts. I didn’t know that 1.8 billion people in the world don’t have electricity.

People without electricity use kerosene lamps instead. Kerosene lamps release two hundred and twenty pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Inhaling all of that carbon dioxide leads to asthma and lung cancer. Each day, inhaling all the carbon dioxide is equivalent to smoking four packs of cigarettes. Families also spend unnecessary money on fuel for the lamps.

Within Capstone, there is something called an action piece, where students have to do something that will impact people related to their topic or move their problem forward. For my action piece, I am doing a fundraiser so that I can donate the money raised to OML to buy solar lamps. Over the summer, I will deliver those solar lamps to families in Peru. I’ll give them to host families during my home stays in Lake Titicaca, Colca Canyon, and villages in Sacred Valley. The solar lamps will greatly improve the lives of those families because before solar lamps, families are limited in the things they can do at night. But with solar lamps, kids can study at night and parents can work more at night to earn some extra money. The solar lamps will also prevent their health from getting worse.

Please consider donating today!