BRIGHTER FUTURES: Flight Centre TG gifts 6,000 solar lights to students in need

Flight Centre is taking its ‘Brighter Futures’ program so seriously that it’s literally brightening up the lives of students in need by giving them solar lights.

Working with SolarBuddy, Global Citizen and Adopt-a-School Foundation, the Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) delivered some 6,000 solar lights to students who don’t have access to reliable lighting in South Africa.

The delivery was made on Saturday 1 December, ahead of the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100, which celebrated Nelson Mandela’s legacy and called on world leaders to take critical action to reduce poverty.

FCTG’s donation will be gifted to students across eight schools in Thari Safe Park, Botshabelo, Free State. The first 300 lights will be handed out during their end-of-year party and the remainder of the lights will be distributed early next year.

Simon Doble, SolarBuddy Founder & CEO, said education is a basic human right, and together with the Flight Centre Foundation, Global Citizen and Adopt-a-School Foundation, they’re ensuring more young people have access to it as well as the tools to succeed.

“[They are] helping us to achieve our mission to provide safe, reliable, effective and innovative solar energy solutions to communities who suffer from the limiting effects of energy poverty.”

Simon Doble, SolarBuddy Founder & CEO

Image: Rohan Makhecha/Unsplash

Anita Russel, FCTG’s Brighter Futures Leader, added that they’ve seen how one light can transform the future of a child, she can only imagine what 20,000 lights can do.

“That’s one light for each of our Flight Centre family. That is a bright future.”

Anita Russel, FCTG Brighter Futures Leader

Across the globe 1.4 billion people live without electricity and the results are devastating – condemning billions to darkness, ill health, unfulfilled futures and repeated cycles of poverty.

Families that rely on traditional fuels for lighting, such as firewood, spend several hours each day collecting fuel. This burden falls disproportionately to women and children and robs them of an education and income-generating work.

Indoor air pollution, the result of using kerosene for lighting, leads to millions of deaths each year, damages eyesight and limits opportunities.

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