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Sparking Hope to Ignite Change |
 Once Circle of Light diminished the need for firewood for cooking, the youth initiated a project to reforest the area surrounding their community.
As a small nonprofit, Circle of Light (CoL) can’t meet every need in the rural areas. Instead, it meets some strategic and targeted needs, and enlists the commitment of the community to do it. By requiring community members to take part in the ministry—through financial commitments of $70 per home for the cooking and lighting kits and through participation in the Energy Store Co-op—people gain sense of ownership and pride. Spark! They see how much they can accomplish working together. Spark! They appreciate the help they receive and want to pass it on. Spark! They realize they can tackle other challenges in their community.
Circle of Light acts as a catalyst—an instrument that provokes and speeds up significant changes in elements around it.
Take, for example, the community of Matumbei, which was once a lush, thickly forested area. Years of harvesting wood for cooking have deforested the land, but a group of 20 Matumbei youths are doing their part to restore it by initiating a tree nursery project. Now that Circle of Light diminished the need for firewood for cooking, the youth are helping reforest the area surrounding their community by selling tree seedlings. They also began raising and selling chickens as a means of generating revenue to support their reforestation project.
Another group of Matumbei youth established a café near the CoL Energy Store that provides meals to the steady stream of people coming to recharge lighting-system batteries and to exchange empty cooking propane cylinders for new ones. In most of the communities, traffic from the Energy Stores has created a central location for new businesses.
Pastor Charles Kwalia started a free school for Matumbei orphans. Now, 42 orphans receive training at the CoL communications center where the TV and VCR are used to show educational films. There’s also a nursery school—Glorious Christian Academy—for ages 6 and under, which was established by other community members due to congestion at the local public school.
In other communities, the Communications Centres are used for agricultural training, HIV/AIDS awareness, church services and for seminars that promote healthy living, emphasizing the benefits of cooking with propane and how cooking more hygienically can prevent the spread of disease.
With each new endeavor, more sparks are set off. Others are being inspired to do something new, something impactful, something meaningful for their families and their people.
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