SonLight Power brings solar energy, clean cooking to Mexico
A grandmother – the matriarch of her family – slowly approaches the new portable solar stove that has been delivered to her village's community center. For decades, she has cooked the family meal on an open fire, enduring the smoke that fills her home and taking care to avoid being burned. Now, she's being trained on the new GoSun solar stove, a solar cooker produced by a SonLight Power partner.
The scene is southern Mexico, near the Guatemalan border. Mayan pyramids dot the landscape but the modern city of Ocosingo is nearby. In between, lies the community center for the Tzeltal people – descendants of the Mayans.
Thanks to your support, SonLight Power led a team from Cobblestone Community Church (Oxford, Ohio) that installed a complete solar power system for the community center, energizing the meeting house with more than two kilowatts of clean electricity. That's enough to power a computer lab, allowing for hundreds of Tzeltal children and adults to gain valuable education and working skills. The team also removed an older two-panel solar system, re-installing it at even more remote school.
Procter & Gamble was responsible for helping us initiate this mission, since they had sponsored a previous project in the same location through the P&G Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation.
And the grandmother? She was moved to tears as she learned to operate the new solar stove. Her food cooked well, her home is now smoke-free and she no longer has to pay for expensive cooking fuel.
Wish you were there? You are.
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Does your family, church, or workplace want to join or sponsor a SonLight Power mission trip? Connect with us at +1 or e-mail [email protected].
