A non-profit organisation called the Buksh Foundation has started a project to provide solar powered lanterns to remote villages that are off the energy grid and would have no hope of being supplied with electricity. There are two “Light Ladies” in each of the villages, who are equipped with solar charging stations and the training to operate them. Each village has been provided with 50 solar powered lanterns to use as an alternative light source, where the only available source has been candles and expensive kerosene lanterns in the past. The title of the project, “Lighting a Million Lives”, suggests that the final aim of the project is much larger, but the social and economic welfare of several communities has already been enhanced by this undertaking. According to the Buksh Foundation’s website, about 21,750 people’s lives have so far been impacted in 53 villages of Mianwali, Dera Ismail Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Chiniot, Sahiwal, Lodhran and Bahawalpur. Although most of these villages are in Punjab, the project is expanding to other provinces and one village in Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a test case. Providing power grids to these areas had not been possible in the past because their sparse rural populations would not make the endeavour cost-effective, which is all the more daunting during Pakistan’s current energy crisis. The inaccessibility and lack of infrastructure makes it even more challenging to supply power to these villages from the grid. Now, not only has this project provided these areas with a cheap and sustainable source of energy, it has had a transformative impact on communities. Farmers and cottage industries are no longer solely dependent upon the sun as a source of light and can work more and hence earn more. People no longer have to travel long distances and pay exorbitant rents to charge their cell phones. But most importantly, poor rural women have been turned into small business owners. One of the main reasons that women are oppressed in Pakistan is because of their social and financial dependence upon the men in their families. Being the operators of charging stations affords a degree of financial independence and a significant role in the community to these women, thus empowering them. Moreover, grassroots campaigns such as this can have large scale impacts. The Buksh Foundations says, “With one million lanterns we can reduce 1.5 million tons of CO2 produced and save around Rs. 25 billion and reduce Pakistan’s oil imports by six percent per year.” This project is the perfect example of what small, underdeveloped communities need in Pakistan. The villages impacted by the project are now empowered to cater to their own energy needs from within the community and are no longer dependent on outside sources to provide them with light. *