Dear Mike,
Today was very frightening.... The house is totally destroyed and of course we lost two of our seminarians. ... We are all sleeping outside but this morning I was on the second level of a building when the quake struck. .... Mike, you must tell the people. I distributed many of the solar flashlights up North but I had saved at least 50 to distribute in the poorest area of Cite Solei. We had the date of the distribution plannned and when the quake hit, the cartons were sitting outside. They have been a tremendous, tremendous help! The Holy Spirit was guiding you when you had that idea and we had to wait but it may have been providential. Mike, please pray for me, for Doug..it is painful to see so much destroyed and so much suffering...
God bless,
Father Tom Hagen
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80% of the population living under the poverty line and 54% in abject poverty. Two-thirds of all Haitians depend on the agricultural sector, mainly small-scale subsistence farming, and remain vulnerable to damage from frequent natural disasters, exacerbated by the country's widespread deforestation. More than 85% of the population lacks access electricity, again, the lowest coverage of electricity in the Western Hemisphere.
This lack of access to electricity and lighting impacts education – children cannot read or study at night; safety and security, especially for women and children, economics with as much as 30% of income being spent on kerosene for lanterns and small shops and cottage industries close when the sun sets, environmental damage from improper disposal of single use cadmium batteries (we only use NiMH batteries with 750 nights of use) deforestation and carbon emissions from kerosene lanterns, health is negatively impacted by breathing kerosene fumes and many are killed or injured from fires started by kerosene lanterns or candles and overall quality of life – their lives stop when the sun sets.
It is with pleasure that I accept the title of Honorary Chairman of this project for my country. It is somewhat fitting that at this stage of my life, I am still fascinated by a project having to do with light.
At the age of 19, I began a Church monthly newspaper in Cayes, Haiti. Its aim was to institute uniformity in the presentation of Sunday school materials for the churches of southern Haiti of which my father was president. In thinking about a name for the publication, the idea of “light for the mind” struck me, and I said, “We shall call it ‘Reyon Limyè’– Creole for “Rays of light”.
The idea gained so much acceptability that the American and Canadian missionaries at “Finca”, the farm that was turned into a Bible campus, also adopted the name. Thus, “Finca” became “Cité Lumière”, (“City of Lights”). As time went on, we had “Clinique Lumière”, “Radio Lumière”, even “Tele Lumière”.
Now, SunNightSolar is embarking on another lighting system to push back darkness that hinders so many of our citizens from performing simple tasks after the sun goes down. I want to be part of such a noble project whose effect I have already experienced with a recent limited distribution in the town of Petit Goave, some 45 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince. When the electrical blackout forced most people indoors, a vendor armed with her solar flashlight was able to continue with her brisk business of selling food – at night. She said, “Mèsi Bondye, Mèsi Mesye Klinntonn! Limyè sa a se sa nèt!” (“Thank you God, Thank you Mr. Clinton! This light is all we needed!”)
Let’s push back the darkness in Haiti, one solar flashlight at a time!
Raymond A. Joseph
Ambassador of Haiti in Washington, D.C.
