WakaWakas for Onobasulu Language project

In Walagu, a small vil­lage in Pap­ua Nieuw Guinea, the loc­al pop­u­la­tion doesn’t have ac­cess to grid elec­tri­city. They mostly light and heat their houses us­ing fire­wood, which puts their safety and health at risk. To charge their phones a 3-day trip to the nearest vil­lage with grid-elec­tri­city is re­quired.

After Anne Stop­pels, a lin­guist­ics re­search­er for the Wyc­liffe Ono­ba­sulu Lan­guage Pro­ject, took her own WakaWaka Power+ to Pap­ua New Guinea the loc­al pop­u­la­tion were very in­trigued by the device. They had some know­ledge of sol­ar power, but didn’t have the means to ac­cess it them­selves. Ac­cord­ingly, Anne de­cided to bring along a box of WakaWaka Powers+ on her next vis­it. She was quickly sold out, and the new own­ers of the WakaWaka’s are happy with their pur­chase to this day. After two years of in­tens­ive us­age the devices were still work­ing as they’re sup­posed to. An in­creased sense of in­de­pend­ence was also of­ten men­tioned, as they did not need to travel to an­oth­er vil­lage in or­der to charge their phones any longer.