DR Congo · Malaika · 2026
15 study lights for Malaika's school in Kalebuka
Fifteen Flash Forward study lights support Malaika's education work in Kalebuka, near Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, adding an estimated 90 learning hours each day.
In much of Sub-Saharan Africa the sun sets around 6 p.m., and school ends around 3. A student gets two or three hours of daylight for homework, then the evening goes dark. In Kalebuka, a village near Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that arithmetic shapes every school night.
Fifteen Flash Forward study lights, built by student interns in Bellevue, Washington, have been delivered to Malaika. Each costs $5.17 in parts: a 3D-printed case, a small solar panel, a rechargeable battery and two LEDs. A light charges in about seven hours of sunlight, gives up to 12 hours of light on a full charge, and is built to last one to two years. Together the 15 lights add an estimated 90 study hours every day.
The idea is students helping students: interns in Bellevue build the lights, and partners like Malaika put them with students who need the hours. In 2024, 655 million people lived without electricity; for a student, that means the day ends when the sun does.
Malaika was founded in 2007 in Kalebuka. Its school for girls opened in 2011, is free to attend, and reports 430 girls enrolled with a 99.3% retention rate.
Around the school, Malaika runs a community center and has built dozens of wells, so the campus sits at the center of village life. Malaika knows the students and families it serves, so it chooses which girls receive the lights. Flash Forward provides them free of charge.
Malaika's retention number says the girls are doing their part, staying in school year after year. The lights do a small part too: more evenings with light mean more homework finished, more lessons readied for the next morning. More lights are on the workbench in Bellevue, and the next delivery to Kalebuka will find students ready to use the hours.
About the Malaika partnership →
Partner information: program overview · community center
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