Residents of Wolunyiri, Ladaateng in the Wa West district of the Upper West Region have been supported with rechargeable solar lanterns by SociaLite lightening system.
The not for profit making organisation took the initiative to mitigate the sufferings of the people in the Wa West district after successfully governments have failed in their promise of connecting the communities to the National grid.
Speaking to the press after handing over some of the lanterns to the communities, Osman Mustpaha an officer with the NGO indicated that SociaLite is seeking to contribute its widow’s mite to alleviate the sufferings most rural communities without electricity go through during the night by providing them with the lanterns with their charging system that mainly depend on solar.
He added that the residents are mostly exposed to reptiles as most of the rural folks share their houses with snakes in the night due to the ‘dark’ nature of the communities in the night as a result of government inability to provide them with stable power system.
Mustapha further indicated that SociaLite has supported a lot of communities in the region emphasising that the residents are only required to pay GH¢5.00 each every month after an initial registration fee of GH¢10.00 to cater for the charging system put in place and for the organisation to be able to sustain the initiative and widen its net. The multi-purpose charging system has been made in that it can be used for phone changing as well as having an audio/visual elements in it.
Narrating the ordeal residents of Wolunyiri go through due to lack of electricity on June 1, 2021, Salifu Yussif a resident says most of the youth are staying outside the community and the few that are in the community cannot engage in any meaningful economic adventure due to the ‘dark’ nature of the community and has called on government to come to their aid.
He also thanked members of SociaLite for first thinking of them and touching their lives positively by providing them with the solar lanterns. He was convinced that if for nothing else but their rooms will be lightened up during the night.
Yussif after expressing his profound gratitude to SociaLite also seized the opportunity and called on duty bearers to as a matter of urgency get the community a CHPS compound stressing that they access health care at Wa or Wechiua whenever one falls sick.
At Ladaateng on June 5, 2021 residents were in a jubilant mood to have gotten such an initiative brought before them for the first that as many who spoke to Radio Waa lost hope in both past and current governments who never honoured their promise of connecting the farming community to the National Grid.
Frank Piiri, a resident of Ladaateng who gave a word of appreciation to SociaLite for giving them the lanterns stated that, the community has been deserted by duty bearers also stressing that access to health care has been problematic as patients are usually transported with tricycles to Wa or Lassia for health care, accentuating that pregnant women have to go through real trauma whenever they are in labour.
Piiri added that the lack of electricity in the community has rendered many job adventures that required electricity unattended to by the youth creating more room for the increasing numbers in youth unemployment.
Nuurpo Kamal a married woman in Ladaateng who also thanked SociaLite on behalf of the women revealed that their children are unable to learn in the night but for the chargeable lamps that have been given to them by SociaLite, that plight will be partially solved.
She again noted that the women group in the community only resorted to farming for livelihood and was optimistic that many women would have been engaged in selling ice cream, sachet water, operating drinking spots and other commercial avenues that require the use of electricity.
