2006.07.11: July 11, 2006: Headlines: COS - Kenya: Service: NGOs: Solar Energy: Poughkeepsie Journal: A $6,000 solar-powered lighting system will be installed at the Givogi Secondary School in August by Kenya RPCV Mark Maxam and other volunteers from across the country
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2006.07.11: July 11, 2006: Headlines: COS - Kenya: Service: NGOs: Solar Energy: Poughkeepsie Journal: A $6,000 solar-powered lighting system will be installed at the Givogi Secondary School in August by Kenya RPCV Mark Maxam and other volunteers from across the country
A $6,000 solar-powered lighting system will be installed at the Givogi Secondary School in August by Kenya RPCV Mark Maxam and other volunteers from across the country
Local communities raise 40 percent of the cost of the system, while private donations to Jua finance the rest. Students at Maxam's middle school raised $900 this year for the project. Villages in Kenya often gather funds by hosting harambees, a Swahili word for "pull together." Harambees are days of singing, storytelling and speeches, where families and interested persons donate what they can. Volunteers pay for their trips to Kenya to install the systems. The first system was installed in 1999, with one added each year since 2001. More schools are on a waiting list.
A $6,000 solar-powered lighting system will be installed at the Givogi Secondary School in August by Kenya RPCV Mark Maxam and other volunteers from across the country
Donors help light a school
Wappinger man a hero in Kenya
By Erikah Haavie
Poughkeepsie Journal
Caption: Students help lift one of three main panels to the library roof at Emalindi school. The panels charge batteries, which run the lights at night during study hours.
WAPPINGERS FALLS — Down a remote dirt road in western Kenya is the Givogi Secondary School.
As with many schools in the country, it is illuminated with the help of kerosene lamps.
This summer, a group of volunteers will bring new light to the 250-student school.
A $6,000 solar-powered lighting system will be installed at the school in August by Mark Maxam, a Wappingers Falls resident, and other volunteers from across the country.
Maxam, a teacher at Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School in Shrub Oak, Westchester County, is executive director of a nonprofit organization known as Jua, the Swahili word for "sun."
He co-founded the organization after working as a Peace Corps volunteer and teacher from 1994-96 in a Kenyan school.
Sixty-five students were learning in a 30-person classroom with dirt floors and an iron-sheet roof.
"It was like walking into some past century of education," Maxam said.
Benefiting students
If students lived too far away to walk home from school, they slept in dormitories at the school and studied by the light from kerosene lanterns, he said.
Sometimes those lamps blew up and burned students, said Maxam, who decided to develop a simple system of providing light through solar panels.
Local communities raise 40 percent of the cost of the system, while private donations to Jua finance the rest.
Students at Maxam's middle school raised $900 this year for the project.
Villages in Kenya often gather funds by hosting harambees, a Swahili word for "pull together." Harambees are days of singing, storytelling and speeches, where families and interested persons donate what they can.
Volunteers pay for their trips to Kenya to install the systems.
The first system was installed in 1999, with one added each year since 2001. More schools are on a waiting list.
Rye resident Jerralee Ernst, also a Jua board member, went to Kenya as a volunteer in 2002.
"I wanted to give something back. We're so fortunate here," Ernst said.
The best part was seeing students' faces light up when the lights turned on, she said.
Jessica Schmid, a 15-year-old junior from Cortlandt Manor, Westchester County, is one of this summer's volunteers, along with her grandmother.
She said she remembers hearing Maxam talk about it during her eighth-grade science class.
"It was always in the back of my mind," she said.
Schmid hasn't been out of the country before, and isn't sure quite what to expect.
"I know it's going to be hard work," she said. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
Erikah Haavie can be reached at ehaavie@poughkeepsiejournal.com
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Story Source: Poughkeepsie Journal
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Kenya; Service; NGOs; Solar Energy
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