The Sustainable Life Club is partnering with OWLI to put on Open Mic: Music to Light a Village on Sunday, May 12th at 7pm in the Chapel. The event will showcase the musical talents of Williston students while benefiting OWLI’s initiative in Kenya to replace kerosene with solar panels for lighting. Students may schedule an audition for the event by emailing Maggie Dewey ’13 at mdewey@williston.com

OWLI, the One World Leadership Institute, works to create learning environments that foster the development of critical thinkers who will become the ethical leaders of our ever-changing world. Specifically, OWLI works to create sustainable student-run businesses in Kenya. OWLI’s solar panel project will provide students in a Kenyan village the first solar panels to get their business started.

The student-lead business in Africa are sustainable on all fronts. With solar panels, students will be able to set up a payment plan with households for solar panels. Each month, households in Kenya will pay the students’ business about what it costs to pay for kerosene lighting, but after an agreed upon period of time the buyers of the solar panels will own them. These students run truly sustainable businesses. In other words, after the initial solar panels they are given to them, they no longer require outside funds to operate. Students reinvest the revenue from sales back into their business. Solar panels are both cheaper and safer to use for lighting than Kerosene.  Solar panels are also a much greener source of energy than kerosene.

Donations from students who attend Open Mic: Music to Light a Village will go directly to purchasing solar panels for student-run businesses in Kenya. By doing this we hope to achieve sustainability outside the Williston community.

Stay tuned for updates!