By Deb Lovig

A while back I got an email from Jean Ronel, an entrepreneur and visionary based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He and a colleague realized that the one thing that would help so many Haitian communities, even those painfully remote mountain villages running on generator-power, is solar-powered path and street lights.

They got some heavy-duty training and mentoring in the U.S. and set off back to Haiti to try to build solar panels and LED street lights, by hand, that could be affordable and useful for any Haitian community. They ordered up parts from the web, messed around with a few different designs and came up with a great solution at an amazing price.

He sent me some photos – they tell an amazing story. Take a look and be prepared to be humbled and astonished and excited.

We talked to him via telephone a few weeks ago and his team at Enersa, the name of his organization, had grown to hundreds of young people now skilled in the art of handcrafting solar panels and LED lights, attaching them to poles and selling them at the amazing affordable price. Read more about their efforts and see photos here.

Business was booming and cities and villages throughout the island were finding ways to purchase one to three lights at a time. Turns out, a single solar-powered LED street light mounted at a key path intersection can do a world of good for safety, flexibility and transportation of people and goods at night. Has any community in the U.S. EVER considered the purchase of one single street light?

We originally wanted the world to know of Jean Ronel and Enersa and we wanted to rally the LED industry around his efforts. We had big ideas of major media coverage, new funds supporting his effort and the villages he is serving. On the morning of Jan. 12, as we stopped to notice that there is a lot more going on in the world than LED lighting…we started to wonder, then worry.

I emailed Jean Ronel in the aftermath of that first terrible earthquake. “Are you and your team okay? Is there any way we can help?”

Jean Ronel responded, “I was very lucky. I’m OK, my family also is OK. All the ENERSA employees are OK, only the plant was destroyed. We are thinking about how we can restart. Right now it is very difficult, since Gvt does not exist. Every Gvt buildings are destroyed. Thanks you for your help, we will let you know very soon.”

If even one of Enersa’s LED street lights is operational at this time, his vision is true. To reach Jean Ronel and Enersa directly, email  Enersahaiti (at) gmail (dot)com.