In New York there are nine new SunBlazer units being packed for shipment to Haiti. These units were built by IEEE volunteers and each will supply enough energy to bring light to 83 homes. The equipment leaves next Wednesday and in early July we will be working with IEEE volunteers and Haitian workers to ready them for deployment to the St. Marc commune of Haiti. Final shipping details are being worked out and the team will breathe easier once the units leave next week.
Milestone one of our USAID contract entitled "747 Points of Light" involved procurement of a staging facility near Port au Prince, Haiti. We received the grant last week and on Friday we accomplished this first milestone. Support for our program has been very high, and partnships are forming that will be the basis of establishing in-country assembly facilities for the long term.
Like the first milestone, the second for our grant is well underway. USAID has policies in place to fairly select beneficiaries of their equipment, and Sirona will be working with USAID to create a standardized policy for selecting the sites for these nine units. This will be accomplished by the end of June so that as we are preparing the units for deployment other members of the Sirona team can be vetting potential Operators and selecting the sites for deployment.
We are very excited to be funded and at work on this project. Waiting for approval on a grant is hard, but the Sirona team used the time wisely and we are very prepared to hit the ground this summer and light 747 houses in the St. Marc commune. Other projects are in our pipeline, other grants are percolating, and we are all very excited about the future. The goal is to bring light to one million people in five years, and we will be making a dent int that goal this summer.
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