NILS VON KALM, church and community engagement coordinator at Anglican Overseas Aid, writes about how the installation of solar lights is changing lives in the Solomon Islands as the organisation launches its 2016 End of Financial Year Appeal…
What is the connection between international soccer and the installation of solar lights in Solomon Islands?
The link is a man called Holland Sikou. In his early 20s, Holland played the world game for his country, but since 2011, he has been the solar coordinator for the Anglican Church of Melanesia (ACOM), helping to provide affordable solar lighting to poor families and communities in a country where most people are not connected to the electricity grid.
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Anglican Church of Melanesia Solar Coordinator, Holland Sikou, installing solar lights in Solomon Islands. PICTURE: Supplied. “Solar lights became very popular about five or six years ago,” he says. “Solar is excellent technology. At the beginning this was very expensive, so the churches made the decision to be involved with the project, because communities could not access the lighting because of its high cost.” – Holland Sikou, solar coordinator for the Anglican Church of Melanesia |
More than 80 per cent of the Solomon Islands population lives in rural areas scattered across multiple, remote islands. This makes communications, transport and delivery of basic health and education services extremely challenging.
In many places people rely on kerosene lamps for light. These lamps are dangerous and polluting, causing burns and house fires, and inhaling their fumes is akin to smoking two packets of cigarettes. As well as that, regular purchases of kerosene for the lamps, or batteries for torches, places great strain on a family’s limited finances.
But the situation is slowly changing, particularly in rural communities across the country. This is due to the provision of solar lights led by Holland and ACOM, supported by Australian agency Anglican Overseas Aid.
Benefiting more than 6,500 people, the project has clearly been having an impact, with solar quickly replacing kerosene as a light source. The province of Ysabel has already completely eliminated the use of kerosene.
Holland is excited that the project is meeting a great need in Solomon Islands. “Solar lights became very popular about five or six years ago,” he says. “Solar is excellent technology. At the beginning this was very expensive, so the churches made the decision to be involved with the project, because communities could not access the lighting because of its high cost.”
Holland’s work across the four provinces includes training people in how to maintain and fix solar lights. This ensures the sustainability of the project, as people are then able to maintain the lights over time, with some of them earning a small income by offering maintenance services to friends and family.
The project also includes small business training that helps people generate income from selling solar lights in their communities, with profits shared between the individual seller and ACOM’s other community development work. In the very remote areas, profits have been used to pay for items such as school fees and stationery for students. The Mothers’ Union in Makira Province was able to use their profits to replace their leaky roof. “This is all from money the communities would not have had if it were not for the solar lights,” Holland explains.
Solar lights are also decreasing the rate of family violence as families gain more income from sales of the lights. Holland says that stress about money can be a trigger for men being violent towards women and children. “We believe that by using solar lights, we are managing the violence in the communities,” he says.
The desire to improve the lives of his fellow Solomon Islanders comes from Holland’s deep Christian faith. “That is the driving force behind me,” he says. “I prioritise people’s needs. They are my brothers and sisters. They deserve to have these opportunities.”
Anglican Overseas Aid has been working with ACOM since 1992. Initially the partnership focused on a project responding to the spread of HIV and AIDS, before it evolved into the current emphasis on solar lights and family violence prevention.
But the installation of solar lights in Solomon Islands is just one of the agency’s areas of focus in its efforts towards global poverty alleviation.
For more than 26 years Anglican Overseas Aid, supported by donations from the Australian public, has been working with Anglican and like-minded partners across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific. Current projects include HIV/AIDS awareness and community care, disaster response, breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, maternal and child health for nomadic communities, promoting the elimination of gender-based violence and more.
And like Holland, a deep Christian faith is the driving force behind all of Anglican Overseas Aid’s work, and how the agency talks about its work with the Australian public.
We do need to raise money to support the great work that is being done by our partners overseas. But we also want to be helping Christians in Australia to understand work for justice as part of the discipleship journey. So, for example, our end of financial year appeal is framed around the theme of the kingdom of God coming on Earth.
We see our international development work as just one way of living for God’s kingdom. Our projects emphasise social equity, health and prosperity, peace and reconciliation, and care for the earth. All of these things relate closely to the theme of global restoration found in the coming kingdom of God.
To pray for God’s kingdom to come on Earth is to ask God to act, but it is also to make a commitment to doing our part to realise this vision of God’s coming kingdom.
You can support Holland’s work, and Anglican Overseas Aid’s other work in the Pacific and around the world, by donating to the “Thy Kingdom Come…on Earth” End of Financial Year Appeal. Go to www.anglicanoverseasaid.org.au or call 1800 249 880.
Nils von Kalm is church and community engagement coordinator at Anglican Overseas Aid.
