Kamala Devi lives with her husband Ram Lal and 3 children Ramesh, Mukesh and Lalitha in a village called Beed Pinarpura which is near the city of Jaipur in Rajasthan, India.

This village of 17 families has no electricity and the nearest road is one kilometer away. The village has a hand pump that the villagers use to collect water but the water barely suffices to meet the needs of all 17 families. Besides this, the hand pump is mostly out of order. The nearest village Chaksu is 4 kilometers away and the villagers have to commute all the way to access any medical facility, marketplace or the police station.

With the lack of basic amenities, your thoughtful gift of a solar lantern, Cole, has come as a blessing for Kamala Devi and her family. The children are excited as they can now study in the evenings. Cooking dinner has become much easier with the light of the Lantern and most importantly, the light of the lantern helps keep rats at bay. The village is infested with rats that often bite the children and adults in the night and even destroy their food and clothes.

Thanks to your generous gift, Kamala Devi’s family can now sleep in peace at night without worrying about being bitten by rats.

Thank you, Cole, for this gift of light that has brought much peace and joy to this household!

Sundar Devi lives with her three children Reshma, Hansraj and Jagdish in Beed Pinarpura a village near the city of Jaipur in India. Her husband works as a driver in Jaipur and visits the family only infrequently. To supplement her income, Sundar Devi works in the fields. She wakes up at dawn and cooks for the entire family, before leaving for the fields with her children. She gets home only after nightfall.

Earlier she was scared to return late from the fields, because she was not able to see her way. But now that your generous donation, Peter, has enabled TRF to give her a solar lantern, she can carry that with her to the fields and use it to light her path. After getting back home, she can also cook under the light of the same lantern, thereby saving on the cost of purchasing kerosene to put in her lamps.

Thank you, Peter, for making Sundar Devi’s life more comfortable.

Chirangi Devi has lived her entire life in the tiny village of Beed Pinarpura in Rajasthan. The village of seventeen families has never known electricity, and kerosene/ oil lamps are their only source of light. Not only are the lamps polluting,  Chirangi Devi’s family spends nearly a fifth of their monthly income on buying oil. Life has always been hard for her, since she has to run the household on the small income that her husband, Dev Narayan, earns by working as a labourer on minimum wages.

Chirangi Devi has often thought of taking on extra work to supplement the family income, but has not been able to do so because she was constrained to work only during daylight hours. Now that your donation, Khalid Siddiqui, has enabled her to get a solar lantern the number of productive hours in her day has effectively gone up. While earlier, she had to hurry to complete the household chores before sunset, she can now stay up late and work. She plans to grind flour and sell to the nearby villages thereby increasing the monthly income of the family.

Thank you, Khalid Siddiqui, for making such a huge difference in Chirangi Devi’s life.

Gyarsi Lal, a labourer, lives with his wife and four children in Beed Pinarpura, a tiny village near the city of Jaipur in Rajasthan. There is no school in the village, and very few people are literate. Gyarsi Lal’s youngest daughter, Seema, is a bright child, who loves studies. The nearest school is in a neighboring village,  and she walks nearly three miles a day to get to school and back.

Since there was no electricity in the village, Seema always found it difficult to do her homework. Night falls early in the village, and ran the risk of spoiling her eyesight by studying in the light of the lamp.

Thanks to your donation, Tanya, The Restoring Force was able to donate a solar lantern to the family. Now Seema can study late into the night. She dreams of graduating from high school and taking up a job in the big city. With the solar lantern to light her life, she may well achieve her dreams.

Thank you, Tanya, for allowing Seema to dream big.

Shakuntala Devi lives with her husband Chanda Lal and son in Beed Pinarpura a tiny village near the city of Jaipur in Rajasthan. There is no electricity in this village and the people depend on kerosene lamps for the light. Her husband works as a motor mechanic and therefore they do not have a fixed monthly income. A major portion of their monthly income went in buying oil for their kerosene lamp.

Shakuntala Devi used to spend a lot of time cleaning and filling the lamp, and was always worried that her two-year old son would knock it over and either start a fire or get burnt himself.

Your generous donation, Rajinder, enabled The Restoring Force to donate a solar lantern to Shakuntala Devi. She can not only save the money she used to spend on buying oil, she no longer has to worry about her son knocking the lamp over.

Thank you, Rajinder, for bringing cheap, clean light into Shakuntala Devi’s life.

Prabhu Dayal is 55 years old. He has 6 members in his family which includes 2 daughters who are school going. He lives in Beed Pinarpura a village in Rajasthan. The village has around 17 families and all of them belong to Bairva caste. The village has no electricity and no other facility. The nearest village Chaksu is around 4 kms away and market, medical and other facilities are not available in this village.

Due to lack of any school in this village the education level is quite bad. Almost all the elders do not know how to read and write so also is the case with the youngsters. The secondary school is in Chaksu village and Prabhu Dayal’s children study there. He is very excited about getting the solar lantern and say the children will now be able to study after sunset.

Thank you Karen Freeman for bringing light to Prabhu Dayal’s house.

Mangi Devi who is almost 100 years old lives with her son, Babu Lal, daughter-in-law, Phula Devi, and three grandchildren in Beed Pinarpur, a village near Jaipur in Rajasthan, India. This tiny village has only 17 families with around 140 people and Mangi Devi is the oldest among them. She is a treasure trove of folk remedies, and all the families in the village seek her her advice when their children fall ill and she almost always has a remedy ready.

Mangi Devi was excited when she saw the mobile phone for the first time in her life. She has never used a phone before and could not believe how people can hear the voice from far off distances through this tiny instrument. She could for the first time speak with her relatives who were staying in different parts of Rajasthan.

Thank you Alanna for connecting Mangi Devi to her relatives! Now, Mangi Devi will be able to offer advice when any of their children fall ill.

Arjun Lal who is 75 yrs old lives with his wife Keshar Devi and son in Beed Pinarpura a tiny village near the city of Jaipur in Rajasthan, India. This village has never had electricity. Arjun Lal does farming for a living but due to the scarcity of rains in this part of the country he does not earn much.

His eyesight is worsening because of his age, and since he cannot see well, he has to wait till it is bright before he can get to work, and has to be back home well before dark. This considerably reduces the number of hours he can spend in the field.

Ever since he got the new solar lantern, which was made possible by the donation you made, David, Arjun has been taking the lantern with him to the fields. He is now able to see his way through the village’s mud paths and fields and spend more time in the fields, and is hopeful of increasing his income from USD 25 a month to something more.

Thank you, David, for improving the quality of life of Arjun Lal and his family.

Chittar Singh lives with his wife Teeja Devi in Beed Pinarpura a village near Jaipur in Rajasthan. He is 75 years old. His eyesight is very weak and he can hardly see. He has two sons who work as labourers in New Delhi. They send money to him every month. As neither of them can work any longer, they have to manage on the small amount they receive from their children.

Chittar Singh and Teeja Devi were delighted to receive a mobile phone thanks to your generous donation. They were excited about operating it and you could see their happiness when they made their first phone call to their sons in Delhi.

They feel that having a mobile phone has lots of advantages since they are both very old, and in case of an emergency, they can contact their children immediately. Teeja Devi is also excited about being able to talk to her sons without having to travel several miles to the nearest public call booth as she earlier had to.

Thank you, Peter, for enabling Chittar Singh and Teeja Devi to stay in touch with their sons.

Gopal Lal who is 34 years old lives with his 4 children in Beed Pinarpura a village near Jaipur in Rajasthan. He lost his wife a few years back and has been singlehandedly raising his 2 sons and 2 daughters. The village has around 17 families and all of them belong to the Bairva caste. The village has no electricity, the nearest road is one kilometer away, and the one hand pump they have for water is mostly out of order. The nearest village Chaksu is 2.5 miles away.

Like most men in this village Gopal Lal works as a laborer and manages his home on USD 2 per day. He is looking forward to doing some stitching work to increase his income. Thanks to your generous donation of a Solar Lantern, Johnny, he can now stitch clothes in the evening and increase his income.