Why Energy?
Imagine growing up without electricity. No movies, video games, or internet. Even worse, straining to do homework by candlelight, without electricity to charge your mobile phone, and watching your food spoil fast without a fridge.
Yet, for almost 800 million people in the world – 10% of the world’s population – that’s daily life. 75% of those live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Imagine you have to walk miles to collect firewood just to boil water or cook a meal. Your kids can’t study at night because the batteries in the flashlight are dead or they have respiratory issues from the kerosene you burn for light. You can’t use your phone unless you walk miles and pay to get it charged. If you’re a farmer, you probably don’t have mechanized equipment – so you’re forced to mill rice and wheat by hand – which is labour intensive and time consuming. Your crops rot in the hot sun before you can sell them at the market because you have no refrigeration.
Today, almost everything we do consumes energy. Energy creates opportunity and drives development and economic prosperity. It enables communication, enhances education, increases productivity, and improves security, healthcare and innovation. What’s more, women and girls are disproportionately impacted by energy poverty – limiting their ability to improve their lives, gain independence, or equal access to income and opportunity.
Energy is a basic human right. But as global energy demands rise, so do carbon emissions.
Energy poverty is one of the greatest challenges of this century. We need to give hundreds of millions of people access to energy, while attempting to minimize emissions for the 7 billion humans on this planet to combat climate change.
Solar energy provides an inexpensive, clean and reliable solution to both of these global issues.
At Little Sun, we believe the power of the sun can change the world.
We harvest the power of the sun and make it available to rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa so people can use clean energy to live happier, healthier, more productive, and more fulfilled lives. Then we use our voice to tell the story of solar to inspire global action to overcome climate change.
In addition to our health, education, and livelihood initiatives, Little Sun works with international organizations and the UN to deliver solar lights and chargers to refugees and internally displaced people, and in disaster relief efforts.