Give

Put a village forward for a Lantern.

Tell us about a village where children have no free school with power and computers. Your request makes it a candidate, not a promise. Every Lantern site is chosen through the same six careful steps, and only with the village council’s agreement.

Start the requestHow a site is chosen

Free to ask. We never ask for map pins or photographs.

  1. EwossaEdo State, Nigeria. Lantern 1 · VL-01 Under construction.
  2. NigeriaVillage to be confirmed. Lantern 2 · VL-02 Planned. Open for support.
  3. GhanaVillage to be confirmed. Lantern 3 · VL-03 Planned. Open for support.
  4. KenyaVillage to be confirmed. Lantern 4 · VL-04 Planned. Open for support.
  5. RwandaVillage to be confirmed. Lantern 5 · VL-05 Planned. Open for support.
Your villagePut forward by you. Six steps to go.
The Lantern Guide lists every Lantern. A request adds a village as a candidate, below the five.

How a village becomes a Lantern.

Six steps, in this order. Each one can end the journey, and that is the point: a Lantern has to be right for the village before it is built.

  1. Step 1: A desk screen

    We read your answers against the criteria below. Go, or not yet.

    Who Our operations lead

  2. Step 2: A visit to the village council

    Through a local connection, we meet the council, explain how a Lantern works, what it cannot do, and the agreement we would sign together.

    Who The founder or operations lead, with the local connection

  3. Step 3: A technical survey

    The land, the road in, sun on the roof, water, the building to power, the mobile signal, and room to stack the containers and run the stair.

    Who Our operations lead, with the installer

  4. Step 4: Counting the children

    Roughly how many children aged 5 to 17 live within a 2 km walk, and which schools are within 5 km, what they charge and what state they are in.

    Who Our operations lead, with two people the council names

  5. Step 5: The land

    The plot, who owns it, and the community’s agreement that the Lantern can stand there.

    Who A local lawyer

  6. Step 6: A signed agreement

    A memorandum of understanding, agreed and signed in public, at a meeting of the village council.

    Who The founder, the council and a local lawyer

Only then does the village get its own Lantern page and estimated target. A Lantern is built only once it is fully funded, and sites are always chosen by us, never by donors.

What rules a village out

  • A demand that the Lantern power private homes, a market or a politician’s compound.
  • Anyone expecting payment for the agreement.
  • Disputed land, or land offered by one family over another’s objection.
  • An active conflict, or a travel advisory that stops visits.
  • Any demand to limit who may learn by religion, ethnicity, school or family.

Your request.

Answer what you know. “Not sure” is a fine answer: we check everything on the ground.

Part 1: The place

Which country?

Lanterns rely on satellite internet that is available in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda today, so those come first. A village anywhere else is still worth telling us about.

The name people use. We never publish anything more precise than this.

Part 2: The village

Roughly how many children aged 5 to 17 live within a 2 km walk?

A Lantern is planned around 150 children. Two kilometres is close enough for a young child to walk there and back every day.

Is there a free school with electricity and computers within 5 km?

A Lantern should never compete with a school that works. If children already have one in reach, another village needs us more.

Could a lorry carrying a 40-foot container reach the village by road in the dry season?

The Lantern arrives whole, on a low-loader. If the lorry cannot get there, neither can the school. We survey the bridges and bends ourselves; a best guess is fine.

Is there a plot of about 20 × 15 m, not disputed, that the community could make available?

The Lantern needs its own ground. Disputed land rules a site out: a school cannot stand in the middle of a quarrel.

Is there a clinic, a primary school or another public building within about 150 m?

The Lantern makes more power than it needs. The surplus goes down one metered cable to a public building, a clinic if there is one, never to private homes.

Where does the village’s water come from?

A facilitator lives upstairs, so the Lantern needs water they can rely on.

Part 3: About you

So we can reply about this request. Nothing else.

How do you know the village?
Do the village’s leaders know you are putting it forward?

A Lantern only goes where the council wants it. It helps to know if they have heard of us yet. It is fine if not.

Part 4: Anything else

What happens to your answers

  • We keep your answers, your name and how to reach you, so we can look into this village and follow up with you about it. We use them for nothing else: no mailing list, and we never sell them.
  • We never publish a location more precisely than the village name. We do not ask for map pins, GPS or photographs.
  • To see, correct or delete what you sent, write to hello@villagelantern.org and we will do it.

Read how we handle your details

A quick check that you are a person, not a robot

A candidate, not a promise.

Every Lantern starts with one village.

Ewossa was the first. While we look into the village you know, four planned Lanterns are waiting for light.

Help light a LanternSee all five Lanterns