The Junior School feels privileged to be leading a Service Learning opportunity as a K-12 project. The project, Light Up Vanuatu, is supported by SolarBuddy and SchoolAid and has been introduced to SMGS through an Independent Schools Organisation, IPSHA.

SchoolAid is an Australian charity empowering young philanthropists by providing in-school support and a crowd-funding platform to enable young people to raise money for charitable causes. SchoolAid builds awareness and opportunities for young people to engage in and benefit from the experience of giving to others.

SolarBuddy is an Australian charity uniting a global community to illuminate the futures of all children. One of SolarBuddy’s goals is to gift six million solar lights to children living in extreme energy poverty by 2030 through its education programs.

Energy poverty affects one in five people on the planet. When the sun sets, these affected people have no light, impacting families who must burn kerosene oil lamps for light. The kerosene is expensive and its toxic fumes are inhaled by children using the light to see. A simple solar light can make all the difference to children’s lives, with research identifying that children with a solar light study 78% longer than those without.

The LUV campaign involves fundraising on the SchoolAid platform for the purchase of solar light kits. Each solar light kit is worth $35. Our students will be involved in building the solar lights, after which they will be sent to SolarBuddy in Queensland for quality control checking. The lights will then be delivered to remote villages in Vanuatu along with a hand written note with each light, written by our students, for the child receiving the light.

The lights are designed to be attached to a child’s backpack to charge in the sun as they walk to school. The lights have a ten-year lifespan that will last for one child’s entire schooling and SolarBuddy will provide two free batteries within that ten-year life span.

Our time frame for this project is:

2021

Term 2 – Fundraising to purchase the light kits
Term 3 – Final orders placed for the light kits
Term 4 – Solar light kits delivered and assembled by SMGS students.

2022

Term 1 – Solar lights delivered and distributed to the children of Vanuatu.

Please click on the link below to hear more about how the Light Up Vanuatu campaign will be delivered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrZyTjCynaw

We sincerely hope that our school and local community will support our efforts in this incredibly important Service Learning opportunity for our students. Our hope is for each of our SMGS families to consider a donation of at least $35 to purchase one light to enable our support to reach as many children as possible within remote Vanuatuan villages.

To support our efforts in the LUV campaign, please donate by going to the SchoolAid website via the link below:

https://www.schoolaid.org.au/snowymountainsgrammarschooljindabyne

We thank you very much for your support.

Through this campaign we hope to achieve two things:
Firstly to make the world a better place, by helping Vanuatu’s children study after dark and improve their educational outcomes.
Secondly to enable the students at IPSHA schools to experience the power of giving, the good feeling we get when we help others without expecting anything in return, that helps nurture a sense of hope and wellbeing in students.
Sean Gordon CEO and Co-Founder of SchoolAid

Yours sincerely,

 

Heidi Shvetsoff

Head of Junior School