Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) — The villagers’ faces light up as Evans Wadongo arrives. Men, women and children sing and gather around as he shows how his invention — a solar-powered LED lantern — will soon light up their homes.
“These families, they are so poor. They don’t have electricity,” said Wadongo, a native of rural Kenya. “It’s only kerosene and firewood that they use for lighting, cooking.
“The amount of money that every household uses to buy kerosene every day — if they can just save that money, they can be able to buy food.”
Wadongo, 23, not only is giving his country’s rural families a way to replace the smoky kerosene and firelight with solar power, he says he also hopes his invention will ultimately improve education and reduce poverty and hunger. And he’s providing it for free.
The youngest of four children, Wadongo grew up in a home that stressed the importance of education — his father was a high school teacher. But years of exposure to smoke while studying by kerosene and firelight left Wadongo with eyesight problems.
Read more/video – http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/02/11/cnnheroes.wadongo/
