GravityLight trials in Jamunamarathur: Meet Lakshmi

Lakshmi and her grandchildren are one of the 1,300 families that trialed GravityLight: GL01.

Lakshmi is 55 years old and lives with her two grandchildren in the Javadi Hills, Tamil Nadu, India.

Her son and his wife are working as daily-wage labourers in the city. As well as being a daily-wage farm worker, Lakshmi also takes care of her two grandchildren. 

Lakshmi and her grandson, Ganeshan, are one of the 1300 off-grid families that trialed GravityLight.

Ganeshan previously studied by the light of a kerosene lamp, which used to strain his eyes and fumes made them water. With the clean and safe GravityLight Ganeshan started studying for longer.

Given GravityLight costs nothing to run there wasn’t the worry that more studying would cost more to his family. His house is dark in the daytime too, so he was able to use GravityLight anytime of day, without needing to pre-charge or worry about the expense.

GravityLight test by Miatta and her children, Liberia

Meet Miatta: she lives with 4 children in the outskirts of Monrovia in Liberia. Liberia has one of the lowest electricity access rates in the world: less than 2% of the population.

Miatta sometimes uses a small diesel generator to create light in her house, but only when money allows. On most evenings  they use small desk lamps that run on batteries. According to Miata the quality of the lamps is low; they break quickly and the light that they generate is not very suitable to study or to work by. 

Miatta attaches GravityLight to a beam in her home.

At first Miatta was sceptical about GravityLight because of her experience with the small desk lamps but:

“We were all surprised how bright the GravityLight and SatLights were in comparison to the battery lights.”

Mattia's experience with GravityLight also highlighted a couple of features that were useful and some improvements we could make too:

- There was confusion between the two hooks, which needed to go on which side? Could we colour code them to show the correct set up?

- We had provided a spare zip tie to attached GravityLight, which our 'trial facilitator', Lachlan thought was a great idea:

“Nice work including a second hanging strap - I fully expect Miatta will want to move her light once she’s had a play with it.”

- We also hear that Miatta’s 5 year old son enjoyed GravityLight too; trying to use it as a swing! Having heard this a couple of times from families around the world, we knew this would be important to consider when designing GL02! 

Thank you Miatta and Lachlan for sharing your thoughts and experience of GL01!

Find out about the improvements we've made for the next generation GravityLight, GL02 - available through our Indiegogo campaign now!

Trials in the Philippines

MyShelter Foundation, known for their Litre of Light projects, lighting up off-grid homes in the day time with sunshine, a bottle of water and chlorine, trialled GravityLight in the Philippines.

Very familiar with the need for affordable, sustainable light in off-grid, densely populated communities, they shared their feedback on GravityLight...

Mr Adrian Ampong talks Mr. Primitivo Saldua through how to set up his GravityLight.

Mr. Primitivo Tibo Salduo and his family tried GravityLight in their house.
He and his family (wife and 2 sons) live in an off grid community of about 100 people in Zamboanga del Sur. Mr. Primitivo is a carpenter just like his two sons. For more than 15 years they have been living without any form of electricity, simply because it is too expensive for them.  For basic lightning they use kerosene lamps, the main source of lightning for more than 800,000 households in the Philippines.  

MyShelterFoundation asked Mr. Adrian Among, an engineer and trainer from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority to support Mr. Primitivo in setting up GravityLight:

Mr. Primitivo Saldua and Mr Adrian Ampong survey their newly installed GravityLight and SatLights. 

When the light was running, Mr. Primitivo was amazed of how it can illuminate his small shanty and how handy it is and easy to use. He was so impressed that he wanted his neighbors to see it as well!

““Thanks to the GravityLight, now we can enjoy light in my house for free. My neighbours came and were delighted to see it. This device can help us, we need not buy kerosene for our lamps, we no longer grope in the dark and we can now enjoy talks with the family under the light of the GravityLight.”

Find out about the new and improved GravityLight design: GL02 - available through our Indiegogo campaign.