Village Infrastructure Angels

VIA’s goal is to provide energy for lighting and productive uses to offgrid communities in developing countries

Grantee Details

Name of project: Solar Light Industrial Centres (SLICs)
Project location: Vanuatu
Type of grant: Seed
Grant awarded: September 2015
Partners: Telecom Vanuatu Ltd (TVL) and ACTIV Association

VIA’s goal is to provide energy for lighting and productive uses to offgrid communities in developing countries. The use of telecom services and infrastructure has been well proven for small consumer-level loads like lighting, phone charging and TVs, but not yet for community-level productive loads such as agro-processing mills, refrigeration and carpentry tools. Vanuatu suffered a direct hit by a massive typhoon in March 2015, and these solar powered Light Industry Centres will help with reconstruction efforts.

Resources

For more information visit their website

Testimonial

“Poor people in Sumba spend valuable long hours on relatively easy tasks such as milling of maize. Using VIA’s small scale solar solutions can change the lives of these people drastically.” – Mr Eco Matser, Global Coordinator for Energy and Development, Hivos