The Students Who Brought a Ray of Light to Borneo
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The Students Who Brought a Ray of Light to Borneo

NICOLO' CENEDA SPENT THE BEST PART OF HIS SUMMER AS A VOLUNTEER IN MALAYSIA, BUILDING AND DISTRIBUTING SOLAR PANELS AND LAMPS TO THE DWELLERS OF A SLUM WITH NO ELECTRICITY GRID. AND HE HOPES SOMEONE WILL TAKE THE BATON

It’s been an unusual summer for Nicolò Ceneda, a second year BIEF student who spent seven weeks in the Malaysian region of Borneo as a volunteer, contributing to bring affordable lighting to the dwellers of Kampung Api-Api, one of the many villages in the area living without electricity.
 
Light of Borneo, the project he joined, is an initiative launched by the IEEE (Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) and AIESEC sections of Curtin University Sarawak, targeted to one of the slum villages scattered around Miri, with no electricity grid or running water. Electricity is privately provided by generators and it can cost families up to one third of their annual income.  No surprise, then, that Kampung Api-Api’s students “don’t catch up with their peers in school also because of the struggle to study by candlelight”, as a local paper wrote.
 
“I was searching for a hands-on, practical experience when I stumbled upon the AIESEC website advertising the project”, Nicolò explains. “We built table lamps and the solar panels needed to power them and distributed the lighting material to Kampung Api-Api’s families, but that’s not all. We also tried to sensitize young people about education and collected money via fundraising events. When we arrived to Kampung Api-Api we brought non only the lamps, but also clothes and toys”.
 
Nicolò spent four nights in the village and has good memories of the people, less good ones of the conditions they live in. “When you walk into the village you see different financial situations, levels of education and living conditions. They range from families who cannot afford to buy a generator to families who own LCDs and refrigerators. Apart from this diversity, all families fight the same daily battle against the lack of electricity”, Light of Borneo students wrote in a Facebook post. “The paths of the village are winding and unplanned, leaving us disoriented and confused. They are often just tree trunks. Bottles and plastic containers litter the water and the side of the paths, but there is no proper place to store waste. The garbage containers haven’t been collected in years, in their place are overflowing bins”.
 
“Now we have all come back home”, Nicolò says, “but the project is not over. I’m sharing my experience hoping that someone else can get involved and volunteer for Light of Borneo in the coming years”.

Flooded road at Kampung Api-Api


by Fabio Todesco

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