Israel: Tikun Olam, One Child At a Time

In central Africa, the Kairo School and Orphanage serves as a place of refuge for children whose parents have died, many of them from AIDS. The orphanage allows the children to continue to develop in a safe environment. However, up until the implementation of Innovation: Africa, the orphanage suffered from an energy issue. Due to the location having no electricity, the only manner in which the orphanage could illuminate the rooms at night was by using kerosene gas or candles. However, this was extremely dangerous, especially for kids, and the faint quality of the light was damaging the children's vision.

Enter Innovation: Africa, founded by Sivan Ya'ari, which installed an Israeli-developed solar energy system in these areas. These systems have provided light to not only the 500 children of the Kairo School, but to hundreds of thousands of residents in the region as well. The project is distinctive in Africa and it recently won a prestigious award from the United Nations. With this new-found light, the children in the orphanage can now have more prolonged days, with extra evening programs teaching them to how to read and write.

In addition to light, the Innovation: Africa projects supply 20,000 liters of clean water a day (due to the solar water pumps they have installed), and drip irrigation systems have produced sources of food and income for farmers and their families. Solar energy units yield not only light for schools, but refrigeration for hospitals, which for the first time can stock and store medicines safely. Also, because of the solar-powered refrigerators, vaccines for many diseases that are prevalent in Africa have been administered to over 300,000 people.


Below is the link to the article and an interesting video featuring Sivan Ya'ari:
1) http://www.timesofisrael.com/lighting-up-africa-with-israeli-technology/
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh3D2j-pnYg

Sivan Ya'ari being presented with an award for Innovation: Africa at an awards ceremony in Nairobi, Kenya.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/lighting-up-africa-with-israeli-technology/