This spring, environmental science students at The Hun School of Princeton built two We Care Solar® Suitcases – traveling energy sources. Twelve of their peers then hand-delivered one of the suitcases to a research facility in the Amazon of Ecuador, during a School-led Global and Immersion Programs trip. A second suitcase was sent to a rural community in the Haitian village of Kwakok.
The suitcases serve as an easily transportable, renewable, and sustainable energy source, powered by the sun, for remote villages with limited electrical resources. The parts for both suitcases were purchased with funds from the 2014-2015 Parents’ Association Faculty Grant program. Students worked together to wire and assemble the components of the mobile power stations. The project took place at the end of the 2014-2015 school year, in anticipation of the June, 2015 trip to Ecuador.
Matt Sozio ’16 said, “It felt good to know that the suitcases we made were going to help make life easier for people in different parts of the world. And it was important to us that the energy source was sustainable because it is clean, environmentally responsible, and can slow global warming through fewer CO2 emissions.”
Chris James, director of educational programs and investigations for Tropical Learning Experiences, the organization that the School partnered with in Ecuador, will help manage use of the suitcase. Mr. James said, “It will be used in training programs for community members in the Amazon and the highlands regarding natural resource monitoring and management. Researchers in ecology, biology, sociology, and anthropology have also expressed an interest in using the suitcase to charge tablets and laptops, and to provide lighting at night for fieldwork.”
The volunteer group Konekte Princeton Haiti delivered the second suitcase to the rural village of Kwakok in late-June. The suitcase will be used to power lights in Kwakok’s multi-purpose community building, which will now be able to host events in the evening hours for Haitian students and community members.
Anne Soos, environmental science teacher at The Hun School said, “It was important to identify locations that will benefit from having free sustainable energy. These organizations are off the grid. The community building in Haiti is in a rural village and will benefit from the additional source of electricity, particularly at night. We’re so pleased to provide these suitcases to educational institutions, because of the tremendous impact they can have on those who use them.”