Peru

Tamaya Rio Solar Lighting Project

This project brought appropriate lighting to populations living in ten villages located along the Tamaya River, in the Peruvian Amazon. These ten villages are in remote locations and, therefore, the populations living in them do not have access to the electrical grid system. These populations rely on resinous fuels or kerosene - lighting that is expensive, dim, unhealthy, hazardous and environmentally destructive. In much of the Amazon native people are forced to sell their forest resources just to obtain a few dollars worth of kerosene. Our lighting systems are recognized by indigenous organizations and communities as an life enhancing answer to many of the survival, livelihood  and education needs of native people living in the Amazon and elsewhere.  

We worked with numerous organizations and communities  to implement this project. We formally partnered with AIDESEP, the Peruvian indigenous organization that represents the interests of 12 regional indigenous federations in the Peruvian Amazon (where the 10 targeted villages are located). Also included in delivering this project was the Instituto Regional de Desarollo de Comunidades Nativas (IRDECON), an agency of the Regional Government of Ucayali.

We also partnered with Arcadis, an international environmental consulting company, in order to professionally assess and report on this project.  Arcadis aided with logistics and  managed the social baseline and impact assessment activities. 

In this project, the lighting systems were installed at no cost to the populations living in the ten communities. However, the communities were required to make financial contributions to pay for the long-term maintenance of the systems at an amount less than their current expeditures for kerosene fuel. Lighting maintenance committees were formed in each of the communities, under the direction of the indigenous federation. They collected $5 per household per year for this program. These funds were used to assist in the livelihood of trained indigenous technicians and for minor maintenance over time to ensure that our lighting systems continue to function for many years.