Ramnabai can finally cook in a lit up kitchen!

Ramnabai with her new solar lantern!

Darkness gave way to light when a solar lantern entered the home of Ramnabai thanks to Cooler Planet and the efforts of The Restoring Force.  Prior to this donation, Ramnabai had lived her entire life without electricity. Each evening, she hurried home from the fields to prepare dinner before the sun set and darkness enveloped the traditional mud home she shares with her husband and two children.

With the light of the lantern she is pictured happily weilding her rolling pin. “I used to accidentally put wrong ingredients into the food because I could not see clearly. Sometimes insects would get into the food in the dark. It was terrible,” says Ramnabai. In addition to facilitating cooking, the lantern is easy to carry, helping the family see their way through the village’s mud paths and fields. Her husband says villagers were scared to go out in the dark because they could not see their way.

Ramnabai watches with pride as her children study by the light of the lantern, nursing the hope that they may not have to support themselves on a monthly income of just 500 rupees (US$ 10), the average in the village of Munj Ka Pura. With a secondary school more than 22 kilometres away, a hospital more than 5 kilometres away, a school teacher who comes only twice a month, and no irrigation for their fields, the solar lantern has now become a beacon of hope for the parents of the next generation.