Young members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their Muslim friends in Queensland are helping an Australian charity to bring light into communities in Vanuatu impacted by energy poverty.
Last Saturday, 186 young single adult volunteers, including friends from the Ahmadiyyah Muslim community, Church members and friends, gathered to assemble 1000 solar lights.
The workers also wrote a greeting or message of encouragement on the instruction sheet that accompanies each light.
One volunteer said, “Not only are we building the lights, but we are also writing a letter to send with the lights, and it really makes it personal, and it really feels good to help others.”
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Billie Murphy, SolarBuddy representative, said, “These lights will be used for children to study at night-time and to move about their community safely and hopefully give them a really good opportunity as they move forward.”
Carl Maurer, Self Reliance manager and Area Seventy (regional leader) for the Church there, said, “I see this as an opportunity to relieve suffering, to increase the capacity for education to be a profile in somebody’s home, to offer better health opportunities in their homes, where they can become more self-reliant.”
Volunteers registered on JustServe, a free community service platform for building unity through community service, where the service project was posted.
The lights were purchased as a humanitarian project, by Latter-day Saint Charities, the service arm of the Church, from Solar Buddy, which is an Australian charity with the goal of ending energy poverty for all children.
After assembling the lights, which took about five minutes each, the young adults continued to mingle with games, activities, and, of course, food.
Carl Maurer said, “I hope that this will be a significant opportunity for families and individuals to see not just the light from the light, but see the light of their lives, Jesus Christ.”