Every year, a group of UNSW students visits remote villages on the Islands of Vanuatu to address basic communications and lighting needs for health and education. All projects only use renewable electricity sources as well! The projects are supported by UNSW Énergie Renouvelable Vanuatu. We, members of the ACDC research group, have come to know about it and we want to support these students to continue such a beautiful project by helping them with crowdfunding! The situation in Vanuatu is that medical and communication services are unreliable and not well maintained in remote villages. Many of these services and off-grid electrical equipment were strongly damaged by tropical Cyclone Pam, in March 2015. Ironically, these services are increasingly required in and following natural disasters. Injured people and imminent mothers cannot easily reach support services when needed and even if support workers are available, darkness can prevent them from being as useful as they could be. Since 2007, UNSW students and staff from the School of Photovoltaics and Renewable Energy (SPREE) have installed solar-powered lighting and phone charging facilities in 14 rural health aid posts and updated renewable energy services for three schools. The students also worked on a mini-grid to provide energy security to the Imaki village, and have since provided locals with a solar power user guide in English and in their local language, Bislama. However, many other places still require these life-changing humanitarian projects. The lives of many Vanuatu Islanders in remote villages could be improved if UNSW students continue to conduct these projects. With your support, they can continue to design, build, and implement solar energy-based systems to cover basic communications and basic lighting needs for dispensaries. Find out more about the great work UNSW students have conducted since 2007 (https://unswerv.org/about/). These projects are also great learning opportunities for our students. Unfortunately, placements to send them to Vanuatu are often limited and they need to spend some of their own money out of pocket to conduct these trips. With the rise in airfares and shipping of equipment, these projects are further hindered. For these projects to continue, we need your help! The ACDC research group has pledged to walk 20 km in the Berowra Valley National Park on the 9th of September. And we want to raise both awareness and a total of $300 per participant through this event. We’ll keep everyone who donates up to date on the activity and share our progress along the way. With these funds, we’ll support the amazing work by UNSW Énergie Renouvelable Vanuatu and see them provide humanitarian engineering projects for more remote villages!
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