SociaLite

Founded in 2017, SociaLite Lighting Systems works to increase awareness of, and alleviate light poverty by developing and installing solar powered micro-grid systems. We actively seek and work with impoverished, marginalized, forgotten communities living in remote locations without access to modern infrastructure, now struggling to accommodate climate change. With light and communication come education and the possibility of breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

The organization emerged from a 2006 first-year engineering class at The Cooper Union in New York City who were challenged “to work with the poorest of the poor and design a lighting system to address their real needs.” Over the past 16 years, working directly with our local mentors and hundreds of members in twenty five communities throughout Ghana and Rwanda, we have developed and proven an engineering methodology and design philosophy to yield systems that function in the middle of nowhere, are locally run, robust, self-sustaining and affordable. Requiring nothing but community enthusiasm and the shade of a tree, people are taught to assemble, install, operate and maintain these systems. Through this, emerge opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship—from the establishment of supply lines to regional organization.