Videos

One Million Lights (501c3 charity) needs your help sponsoring and delivering solar-powered lights to impoverished communities that lack access to basic needs such as food, water, and electricity. 

While all solar devices help prevent air pollution and global warming, a solar-powered light not only replaces expensive and hazardous kerosene lamps with a renewable alternative, but also enables impoverished children to study at night, and adults to extend their workday and increase their income. 

To date, One Million Lights has distributed over 21,000 lights across 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, India, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Peru, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Through our programs, roughly 150,000 people now have access to solar lighting.

Manage your own project in your location of choice, or team up with your friends, family, or community service group.   Help us bring lights to more communities around the globe. 

Vision

We want to send people like you to all corners of the globe, to hand-deliver solar lights directly to people in need.  If you help us reach our goal of distributing 1,000,000 lights, each year we will

• Allow 7 million adults and children enjoy clean, solar light rather than using kerosene lamps
• Add 1.5 billion hours of safe study and work in the home
• Enable our light recipients to save 1/4 of their income and repurpose it towards items like medicine, education, food, and clothing
• Offset 1 million tons of carbon emissions - that’s 100 kg of carbon/family!

Current Reality

The need for clean, safe lighting in impoverished areas is urgent:

• Over 1.6 billion people worldwide lack access to electricity. To avoid being plunged into darkness at sundown, they depend on kerosene lamps that represent a significant economic burden and create many environmental and health risks.
• Families may spend up to half of their income on kerosene, even though it provides inadequate illumination and is responsible for 1.5 million deaths from burns and respiratory illnesses annually—62% of which are children.
• The rural poor are the largest users of kerosene, often walking great distances to purchase it. Our lights help families shift wasteful kerosene cost to productive investments in education, nutrition, and healthcare.
• Used 4 hours a day, a kerosene lamp emits over 100 kg of carbon each year. Consequently, the worldwide combustion of fuel for lighting results in 190 million tons per year of carbon emissions.

Lack of clean, safe lighting is only one of many problems facing those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. We believe that providing clean solar lights creates a ripple effect of positive change that will ultimately help individuals to lift themselves out of the debilitating cycle of poverty.

Join Our Program

In our Global Ambassador Program, you manage your own project and deliver the lights yourself -- 100% of your efforts go to the project of your choice.  There won’t be any doubt that your contribution makes a real difference, and better yet, you will have made the trip of a lifetime. 

Watch our videos to see some of our ambassadors in action, and to hear what inspired them to join our cause. 

To sign up,  visit our website at www.onemillionlights.org

The Sustainability Movement is characterized by the underlying links that bring together business, environmental, and social interests. Because of the diversity of motives, varied stakeholders (everyone), and broad, inclusive definition of "sustainability," communication has emerged as a matter of vital importance. To reach the masses, unique and imaginative forms of expression are crucial.

Fortunately, it appears that sustainability inherently attracts creative forces. CYW has developed relationships with bright minds who mix imagination with a strong dose of talent to advance important sustainability messages. For instance, Mr. Eco (Brett Edwards of Cal Poly) raps to spread energy-saving tips, while Maia Iotzova (Green Dream Media) uses a documentary film to examine the filmmaker's intrinsic nature, convential modes of filmmaking, and finally, how the end product results in a revelation about society and our relationship with the environment.

This community was formed for the following purposes:

1) Find, share & promote artists who capture the spirit of the Sustainability Movement

2) Explore the relationship between media/marketing and sustainability

This community examines Strategic Sustainable Development, a powerful approach to bring sustainable change to various types of systems.

A framework for strategic sustainable development (FSSD) also know as the Natural Step Framework has been developed and applied over the last 20 years by scientific and sustainability practitioners in a variety of context. It is used to help integrate sustainable practices in businesses and communities in various parts of the world.

The FSSD builds on backcasting from basic and robust principles for sustainable development, and is designed to help:

• analyze current practices from a full sustainability perspective;
• discover solutions to problems and visions that may design the problem out of the system we are working on;
• find strategic and economically feasible or competitive investment routes to arrive at such solutions and visions;
• and to select and inform the tools needed for the transition towards sustainability.

What makes this approach so powerful is that it allows an organization to design innovative solutions within a framework that prevents further problems along the way. By taking the perspective of the organization and its unique context to the global socio-ecological system we are able to address the most significant aspect for sustainability in the short and long term.

This community has ongoing dialogues on growing fresh food, improving indoor air quality, and bringing nature indoors during colder months.

Overview:

An opportunity exists to expand urban gardening into homes, offices, and institutions, so residents can enjoy the vibrancy of nature, and gardeners can pursue their passion year-round. Indoor multi-purpose gardening services could benefit public health and air quality, create more resilient local food economies, and strengthen community involvement. Want to take part in the collaboration? Check out the Opportunity here.

Vision:

Les jardiniers à bicyclette would like to offer Montrealers and other urban communities a helping hand, a human connection, and guidance for eco-gardening in the home and office. They envision living and working for the happiness of people and the vitality of the planet, which in turn will create inner energy for their employees and the clients they touch.

Current Reality:

There is a great deal of knowledge available on how to grow plants indoors, however a more comprehensive look at the ecological impact of different indoor growing methods needs to be taken. In order to offer eco-friendly indoor services, it is necessary to convince consumers that these practices are virtuous and professional, to make them accessible and easy to manage, to ensure that workers are knowledgeable enough to offer these services, and to cycle through the harsh winter months.

Purpose of Community:
This is a Community to continue the conversations from the Opportunity: Providing urban dwellers the benefits of nature indoors. Post your questions, personal opportunities, local resources, and success stories here!