Light the Way: Energy Justice and the One Billion People Left Behind

Overview

Picture finishing your homework by the light of a kerosene lamp. More than 660 million of our neighbors around the world have no lightswitch on the wall. Hundreds of millions more do have a connection, but it is too unreliable to count on. Kerosene is expensive, dangerous, and it fills small rooms with smoke and the atmosphere with heat-trapping climate pollution. If you have ever wondered where climate justice meets plain human dignity, this is one of those places.

On Tuesday, November 17 at 7:00 p.m., MassIPL is joining our friends at JCAN-MA and SolarBuddy for an evening online about energy justice. We invite you to learn more about a hands-on climate justice project your congregation can actually do together, right in your own fellowship hall, social hall, or classroom -- with your youth group and the green team working side by side.

In this webinar, you'll learn:

• What energy poverty is, and what it looks like in a family's daily life
• How a small solar light changes things for children and families, with stories from the people who distribute them on the ground
• How to host a solar light assembly, where people of all ages put lights together and write notes to the children who will receive them
• How all of this connects to the clean energy work MassIPL and JCAN-MA do with houses of worship here in Massachusetts

Ways to take part

A Massachusetts congregation is hosting a solar light workshop this February, and you are welcome to come see one up close. We'll also talk about how your community can support solar lights during Hanukkah, for Earth Month in 2027, or throughout the year.

So many of our traditions keep a festival of light in the darkest part of the year, whether it's Hanukkah candles, an Advent wreath, or the lamps of Diwali. Learn how your congregation can help light the way with us!

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