Solar lighting for emergency shelters: Field insights from Ukraine
In summer 2025, BRIGHT deployed 710 solar lamps across Ukrainian emergency shelters, schools and displacement settings. Field monitoring data from Kharkiv shows how solar lighting supports safety, mobility and education continuity in conflict-affected environments.
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![A student in Kyiv uses the BRIGHT Sol Mid Capacity solar lamp to study a map.]()
- Humanitarian
- Insights
- Stories
Solar lighting for emergency shelters: Field insights from Ukraine
In summer 2025, BRIGHT deployed 710 solar lamps across Ukrainian emergency shelters, schools and displacement settings. Field monitoring data from Kharkiv shows how solar lighting supports safety, mobility and education continuity in conflict-affected environments.
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![Joona Cichy sits next to some of the SunTurtle solar lamps he bought for donation to learners in Ghana and Madagascar through his Bright Futures ngo]()
- Stories
- Humanitarian
Bright Futures: How a 16-year-old is donating solar lamps to help learners study after dark
In Cologne, Germany, December darkness settles early. Most students move from school to after-school clubs and switch on their desk lamps without a second thought. Yet for millions of children elsewhere, nightfall closes the school day altogether. This contrast prompted one student to act.
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![BRIGHT solar lamp Repair Program in Bidibidi Uganda. Group photo of E-waste Management project participants, featuring representatives from BRIGHT and IOM (© BRIGHT).]()
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- Sustainability
- Field work
- Humanitarian
- Repair
BRIGHT’s solar lamp Repair Program: A circular economy model for humanitarian e-waste
In Uganda's Bidibidi refugee settlement, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) leads a multi-stakeholder e-waste management project that Norway's Innovation Norway and IOM's own reporting to the UN describe as the leading e-waste initiative in the humanitarian sector — the first comprehensive circular economy model tested in a displacement setting. At its centre is BRIGHT's solar lamp Repair Program, which trains local technicians to turn e-waste into opportunity through repair, refurbishment and battery recovery. Since the project launched in 2022, technicians have collected 11,650 solar lamps, repaired and returned 9,379 to use, and recovered over 20,000 lithium-ion cells for reuse in second-life battery packs. By combining circular economy principles, community ownership and a direct feedback loop into product design, the Repair Program offers a working model for e-waste management in displacement settings — aligned with Sustainable Development Goals 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production).
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![BRIGHT Products SunBell solar lamp being used to provide light while cooking]()
- Sustainability
- Stories
- Humanitarian
SunBell: first solar lantern categorized as a UNHCR core relief item
Access to light and mobile charging is a critical basic need for people forced to flee their homes. Since 2014, over 4 million SunBell solar lamps with built-in phone chargers have been distributed globally, transforming the lives of displaced families by offering safe, clean, and reliable lighting.
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![Esther, one of the 2,000 recipients of BRIGHT's SunBell solar lamp through Yara's Action Africa Initiatice, places her SunBell to charge in the sun.]()
- Stories
- Sustainability
How SunBell solar lamps are lighting up rural communities in Kenya: Esther's story
In 2020, Esther, a small-scale farmer in rural Kenya, received one of 2,000 SunBell solar lamps from BRIGHT through Yara’s Action Africa Initiative. Like many others, Esther had relied on kerosene lamps for years, enduring the health risks and high costs associated with them. Thanks to SunBell, she no longer needs to walk long distances to access electricity to charger her mobile phone or purchase expensive fuel to light her home.
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