Click - light!

I'd been stuck in front of the computer all morning, working on something, so when I noticed one of my neighbours striding past the house I dashed out and joined her for a walk.  In the end we were out for nearly an hour, walking briskly because (in spite of yesterday's record high temperatures) it was really chilly again (in fact later in the day we had a brief but impressive snowstorm).

So, that was good - caught up on some chat.  Not long afterwards I headed out for a meeting with my friends who are involved with FUNHO - the community school in the Dominican Republic which I've mentioned before (and of which I'm now a board member).  A couple of them had been down in DR for a few days last month and had much to report.  Although currently only able to offer the most rudimentary education with untrained teachers, it seems as if some of the FUNHO kids that go on to the local public school are the star pupils - so something's going right.

I was especially interested to hear about a project involving bottle lights.  Through a friend I'd seen this clip on the web - showing how to make sunlit ceiling lamps out of recycled soda bottles - and had passed it along.  Now a couple of local guys in DR associated with FUNHO are setting up in business installing these amazingly simple light fittings into tinned roof buildings.  At the school they finally have a light in the previously pitch-dark toilet.  It's cool to see how a simple act of click-and-share can literally help bring light to a community.  Kudos to the social entrepeneur in the Philippines who has pioneered this light-fitting, and shared the idea on the internet.