This April, myself and some of the Edukid team will be running the London Landmarks Half Marathon. Having never taken part in a running event before, this will certainly be a challenge! I am raising money for the Edukid solar panel programme - that aims to supply children in Uganda & Peru with solar lights to help ensure they have safe, and sustainable light! 💡

Many of the children we work with in northern rural Uganda struggle to pass their end-of-year exams and progress to the next school year. On the whole, this is due to not being able to do their homework or revision.

Being a country on the equator, Uganda sees the sun go down each day at 6:30 PM. All of the families we work with live in Banda's (mud huts), with no electricity, and so once the sun goes down it is pitch black. This means that the children we support are simply unable to study after school. Some families use paraffin candles to light up their homes so that their children can do their homework. The candles often cause more issues, as the Banda's have poor ventilation and so the fumes cause damage to the children’s lungs. The candles also pose as a fire hazard to the straw roofing of the family home.

Edukid is committed to breaking down the barriers to education that children living in poverty face. In this case, lack of electricity is a barrier to progressing at school and so Edukid and Solar 4 Students has developed a project that provides clean, sustainable light.

One thing that Uganda has lots of is sunshine! We are using this natural resource to provide light to the children we work with through solar panels that can be fixed to the top of the Banda roofs and can provide up to 8 hours of light for the 12 hours that it is dark!