A new initiative is providing solar energy to Puwakpitiya, a remote village in the Knuckles Range.

The initiative, known as the Home Employment and Lighting Package (HELP), was designed in Nepal by the Himalayan Light Foundation to offer a sustainable method of disseminating solar home systems to rural communities.

The main focus of the program is to develop poor and remote villages economically while also enhancing their infrastructure and improving their income generating skills.

Fifty villagers are being trained in the art of making paper from widely available natural resources. They plan to sell the paper and use the income to pay for their solar lighting systems.

Sewalanka staff are confident that brining the initiative to Sri Lanka will be of great benefit to impoverished rural communities.

To date, 20 villagers have been taught by two paper making experts from Nepal. The remaining 30 village members will learn the skills from Sewalanka staff members who have been specifically trained by the Nepalese experts.

Sewalanka is developing a marketing strategy for the paper products and will link the community with local and international markets.

While the paper making training is taking place and the villagers are building up stock to take to retailers, the solar power technology will be installed in the households. All 50 households should have power by early April.

As proceeds from the sale of the paper have not yet started coming in, the technology will be purchased using a revolving fund that is jointly managed by the community-run Solar Development Committee and Sewalanka Foundation. Once the solar power systems have been paid for by the sales of the paper products, Puwakpitiya village members will continue to make and receive the income from the sales of their handicraft products, enhancing the community's earnings and self-reliance.

There are currently three HELP villages operating in Nepal with over 100 solar systems deployed in households. Each village is producing a unique handicraft product that will be sold worldwide.

The model has proven to be extremely successful in these villages, with community members eager to learn new and interesting skills and happy to pay back the costs of their solar power infrastructure with product, rather than scarce cash.

Upon successful implementation of the HELP project in Puwakpitiya, Sewalanka will look into expanding the project to other villages in the hill country.

For further information on the HELP project email Mr Lal Fernando