Design that Matters Field Journal

Centre Songhai and Light Up the World

At this morning's meeting with Songhai director Frere Nzamujo, in addition to the Kinkajou and various other potential DtM projects, we discussed potential applications for Light Up the World's one-watt LED lamps. Rural community lighting is the most obvious application, and Songhai does work with solar lighting systems for their training centers in regions not connected to the grid. A less obvious application, and the one that was the most immediately compelling to Fr. Nzamujo, was the use of LUTW lamps in Songhai's fish and poultry hatcheries. A reliable source of low-power lighting would allow them to increase the growth rates of fish larvae, and would encourage their chicken to lay more eggs. The fact that an LED bulb has an average lifespan of 20,000 hours--that's almost three years of continuous use--made it an attractive alternative to incandescents and fluorescents.

This is the Songhai egg house--thousands of chickens in wire cages, with wire ramps on the floor of each cage that empty directly into little gutters, allowing the staff to collect the eggs without having to hunt around under the chickens.

This facility houses juvenile chickens. "All they seem to do is run around, peep and eat," said Liz.

Finally, this is from the larvae tank at the Songhai fish farm.

We left three LUTW lamp sets with Fr. Nzamujo for testing in their hatcheries. They are looking forward to contacting David Irvine-Halliday and his colleagues at LUTW, and they have promised to send us details and data from their various test installations on the farm.