Light Up Gbonkolenken: 200 More Solar Lights

LIGHT GBONKOLENKEN INITIATIVE

The aim of this project is to provide solar street lights to villages in the Gbonkolenken area of rural Northern Sierra Leone, West Africa. There is no electricity in any of its numerous villages.

Since 2023, the Light Gbonkolenken Initiative has provided solar street lights to over 60 villages in the Chiefdom. So far, the lights have created an opportunity for school-going children to read and do school work after dark, and thus improve their educational achievements. The lights have also created spaces for villagers to meet, socialize and do routine trading in the evenings.

This GoFundMe initiative hopes to raise funds to purchase another 200 solar street lights, sufficient to light up 40 more villages in the Chiefdom.

This project was initiated, and is being carried out, by Andrew Conteh, of Juneau, Alaska. Andrew grew up in Gbonkolenkenen during his country's Civil War, and in 2013 immigrated to the US. It is his goal to improve the lives and wellbeing of the members of his home community.

Below are pictures of children and community people in villages studying and socializing under the lights already purchased and installed: