Solar for Syria

An es­tim­ated 9 mil­lion Syr­i­ans have fled their homes since the out­break of the civil war in March 2011, tak­ing refuge in neigh­bour­ing coun­tries or with­in Syr­ia it­self.
Since 2013 WakaWaka, The In­ter­na­tion­al Res­cue Com­mit­tee and the Dutch Refugee Or­gan­iz­a­tion (Sticht­ing Vluchtel­ing) have partnered up to provide crisis aid to flee­ing Syr­i­an cit­izens. Next to the es­sen­tial needs, ac­cess to light and power is crit­ic­al for the Syr­i­an refugees.
WakaWaka’s sol­ar powered devices provide im­me­di­ate as­sist­ance as well as long-term re­lief. Cur­rently there are over 72 000 WakaWa­kas dis­trib­uted to house­holds and fam­il­ies liv­ing in camps. This en­ables more than an es­tim­ated 360 000 Syr­i­an refugees to safely see in the dark, move about, study, cook, read and gath­er after dark­ness, without the risk of tent fires due to the use of ker­osene lights. An­oth­er very im­port­ant be­ne­fit from the WakaWaka power, is that it al­lows them to charge their phones so they can stay con­nec­ted with fam­ily mem­bers and loved ones.

The WakaWaka power is “among the most val­ued aid tools we dis­trib­ute in Syr­ia” (Bob Kit­chen, Dir­ect­or Emer­gency Pre­pared­ness and Re­sponse of the In­ter­na­tion­al Res­cue Com­mit­tee). The Sol­ar for Syr­ia cam­paign is our longest run­ning cam­paign and we re­main com­mit­ted to help­ing the ever-in­creas­ing num­ber of Syr­i­an refugees.

Note: the im­pact loc­a­tion on the map is the point from where the WakaWaka devices were dis­trib­uted in­to camps, vil­lages and re­mote areas.