A TINY LIGHT PACKS INFINITE POWER TO CHANGE THE WORLD

LUCI LIGHTS - MPOWERD

So much of the world lives without light after the sun goes down. It contributes to widespread poverty, health problems, and even death. But now, thanks to the beautiful activists at MPOWERD and All About the Light, light is making life better.

One of the most debilitating things in Third World countries is the lack of electricity. At night, most activity needs to come to a halt. People can’t work, read, tend to themselves or their families, or deal with emergencies. Light changes everything.

About 1.3 billion people in the world have no access to electricity and about 2.6 billion people rely on burning wood, charcoal, kerosene, or dung to power their lives, according to International Energy Agency estimates. This has direct negative impacts on both the people and the environment.

Kerosene-fueled lights, for example, often leads to eye infections and respiratory illnesses, especially in children. Furthermore, trees are cut and sold for wood to help pay for the kerosene, causing widespread deforestation and habitat loss.

When UN advisor Jill Van den Brule was working in Haiti, just after the massive earthquake, she saw how all recovery efforts and, in fact, all basic living efforts ground to a halt at night due to lack of light. She partnered with Jacques-Philippe Piverger, a Haitian-American private-equity trader, to try to solve this pervasive problem.

In 2012, a lightbulb went off in their heads. If they could create inexpensive little lanterns, powered by the sun, they could light up the world for Haitians as well as for other impoverished people who spend half their lives in darkness.

Van den Brule and Piverger teamed up with energy technologist Jason Alan Snyder, John Salzinger, Charles Andrews, and Steven Gundersen, to develop the Luci Light, a micro solar-powered lantern, with a mission to light up world.  

It was important to make Luci tiny so it would be easy to carry and store. It weighs a mere 4.5 ounces, it measures 5” in diameter and collapses to a 1” height, so it fits in the palm of your hand. Yet it packs a lot of power, providing a pool of about 15 square feet of light. This small LED lantern is inflatable and water-resistant.

The team cofounded MPOWERD, a B-corp, a new class of for-profit companies accountable for maximizing social impact, not profits. Their business model is to sell enough of these clean energy lights to people in the developed world to drive down the cost so they can provide light to the energy-impoverished world at little or no cost.

Luci Lights can help people to break the poverty cycle in many important ways. They help emergency-room surgeons who work in war zones. They assist midwives in delivering babies born at night.

Luci Lights enable kids to safely walk home from school on rural roads as twilight descends. Luci helps them to study after their daytime chores are done. Luci helps parents take better care of their families when daylight is gone and helps them to hold 2nd jobs for much needed income.

Women, who spend the majority of their days gathering firewood that is primarily used to provide light, with Luci’s help, can now be free to spend more time with their children and do more meaningful work -- work that can improve their lives.

A Luci Light also eliminates costly kerosene bills (often more than 20% of annual expenditure) allowing that money to go to food or school uniforms or notebooks or a book or two.

Van den Brule likes to quote Plato who references the “torch bearers of humanity: its poets, seers, and saints, who lead and lift the race out of darkness, toward the light. They are the law-givers, the light-bringers, way-showers, and truth-tellers, and without them humanity would lose its way in the dark.”

The Luci micro solar-powered lantern has now become a catalyst for development that impacts education, health, safety, the environment, and economic development. MPOWERD partners with energy companies, such as Direct Energy, to further the social impact of their Luci Lights. Luci Lights are now distributed in 23 countries.

ALL ABOUT THE LIGHT -- DAVID MIDDLETON

Outdoor photographer David Middleton came across many people in need of light during his travels and philanthropic work. He used Luci Lights to facilitate his own photography. He saw how the lights could help people.

Middleton found that the simple act of giving a Luci Light had profound consequences.

Middleton was driving a rattling old Land Rover down a bumpy dirt road in northern Uganda in November 2014, when that proverbial lightbulb went off in his head. He was following up on some philanthropic photography work he had done 6 months earlier.

After seeing how effective and valuable the lights were on his 1st trip, he knew he wanted to continue to give lights away on 2nd trip. He brought 2 dozen Luci Lights to give away to people he expected to encounter along his way.

“It’s a heady experience to give light to a person who lives half their life in darkness and for me it quickly became addictive,” explains Middleton. The phrase “it’s all about the light” is rooted in photography. This photographer wanted to spread the light even more.

Middleton founded All About the Light (AATL), a non-profit organization, that gives Luci Lights, at no cost, to photographers and other travelers to distribute to energy-impoverished people around the world.

“You hold in your hands the power to not only give light to a dark room, but also to give hope to a struggling student, health to a new baby, opportunity to a businessman, and promise to an overwhelmed parent,” says Middleton. “Give a light. Change a life. It’s that simple. It’s that profound.”

One of the most important tenets of All About the Light is the person-to-person connection that occurs when a Luci Light is given to an energy-impoverished person. The organization asks photographers to give a Luci Light directly, personally, to a person in need.

“A Luci Light will tip the balance of a person’s life toward hope and opportunity. It will literally light the way to a better life,” explains Middleton.

For more inspiration, check out the Givers Gallery. And check out Middleton’s 14 books, including Ancient Forests, The Nature of America, The Nature of Vermont, A Photographer’s Guide to Vermont, A Photographer’s Guide to the Maine Coast,  A Photographers Guide to the Oregon Coast, Quite a Sightly Place , The Lobstering Life, and Maine Coast Memories.

If you want to become a Giver of Light, you can give light and hope to people who need it most by purchasing a Luci Light and by donating to All About the Light and Give Brighter.

Read more about Beautiful Activist in Tiny Schools Change The World and Rising Up, Resisting, supporting women’s health with Art.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact Daily Fix posts.

Want more stories like this? Sign up for our weekly BN Newsletter, Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr. Join our BeautifulNow Community and connect with the most beautiful things happening in the world right now!

Do you have amazing photos? Enter them in this week’s BN Photo Competition. We run new creative competitions every week! Now, it’s even easier to enter with the new BeautifulNow App!

Plus check out the rest of our App’s beautiful features. It’s free to download here.

IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: Courtesy of MPOWERD. Rancher checks the herds at night with aid of solar powered Luci Light.
2. Image: by Sebastian Rich. Family in rural Africa lights up their dark night with solar-powered Luci Light. Courtesy of MPOWERD.
3. Image: Courtesy of All About the Light. A dangerous kerosene fueled light is the only way to see at night for many energy-impoverished people.
4. Image: Courtesy of MPOWERD. Haitian boy holds a solar powered Luci Light.
5. Image: Courtesy of MPOWERD. Children light their way with solar powered Luci Lights.
6. Image: Courtesy of MPOWERD. Solar powered Luci Light helps a camper.
7. Image: Courtesy of MPOWERD. Boy holds a solar powered Luci Light in the palm of his hand.
8. Image: Courtesy of MPOWERD. Luci Lights help people find their way home at night in rural Africa.
9. Image: Courtesy of MPOWERD. Luci Lights help children find their way home at night in rural Africa.
10. Image: Courtesy of All About the Light. Children walking home from school in rural Uganda aided by Luci Light.
11.  
12. Image: by David Middleton. Mother and son read by solar powered Luci Light in Pap-Onditi, Kenya. Courtesy of I-KODI, in partnership with All About the Light Foundation.
13.  
14. Image: Courtesy of MPOWERD in partnership with Direct Energy. Child draws a picture by solar powered Luci light.
15. Image: by Sebastian Rich. Luci Light. Boy reads to his family with the help of solar powered Luci light in rural Africa. Courtesy of MPOWERD.
16. Image: Courtesy of Direct Energy. Demonstrating the power of a solar powered Luci Light.
17. Image: by Brenda Berry for All About the Light. Maasai mother holds her baby and Luci Light.
18. Image: Courtesy of All About the Light. David Middleton gives solar powered Luci Lights to villagers in Uganda.
19. Image: by David Middleton for All About the Light. Solar powered Luci light brightens up a room for mother and son in rural Africa.
20. Image: by David Middleton. Maasai with Luci Light. Courtesy of Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust (MWCT).
21. Image: Courtesy of All About the Light. Boy studies with the help of solar powered Luci Lights in Uganda.
22. Image: Courtesy of Nomad Tanzania Greystoke Mahale. David Middleton gives Luci Lights to people in need in Mahale, Tanzania.
23. Image: by Brenda Berry for All About the Light. Maasai Woman milks a goat aided by a Luci Light.
24. Image: Luci Lights. Courtesy of MPOWERD in partnership with Direct Energy.
25. Image: Courtesy of MPOWERD. Luci Light helps people tend to life in energy-impoverished places.
26. Image: by BN App - Download now!
27. Image: Courtesy of MPOWERD. Luci Light helps people tend to life in energy-impoverished places.