Panels for Panama
We fund and install complete solar kits for rural families in Panama. Panels, a battery, and lights that last the night.
A complete kit costs $400. Give any amount toward the next one.
Donations are handled on GoFundMe. Opens in a new tab.
5 of 25 homes funded
$2,065 raised of $10,000 21%
The project
Every kit is the same four pieces, installed by hand, checked twice a year. Nothing about it is temporary.
Fund the next kit
We work through community leaders in the comarcas, not from a list. They know which households are furthest from a line, who has a kid studying, and who has been waiting longest. The family agrees to the install and to a check in twice a year.
Panels go up in the morning, wiring by afternoon, first switch on before dark. The family gets shown how to look after it, in Spanish, on paper, and by phone after.
We go back at six and twelve months. If a light fails or the battery drops, we fix it. A kit that stops working is not a kit, it is a favour that ran out.
Pull the switch
Drag the lever to dim the room. It is one photograph either way. The light is the only thing that changes.
Without it, the day ends at six. Dinner is cooked by feel, homework stops when the sun does, and the smoke from a kerosene lamp fills the room the children sleep in.
With it, the evening belongs to the family again. Homework after sunset, a kitchen you can see in, and nothing burning indoors to make light.
Panama
Panama has grown fast, and most of the country is connected. The families we work with are the ones the grid skipped: up a river, over a ridge, past the point where running one more line stops making sense to anyone but them.
Rural districts and the comarcas, reached by road, then by boat or on foot.
No line to run, no fuel to buy, no monthly bill. Sun, a battery, and lights that last years.
Kerosene lamps, candles, and phone screens held up to read by.
Why the line never reached them
From the field
What the team sees in the homes they wire. The families' own accounts are being recorded now.
The kitchen is the darkest room in most of these houses. One light above the stove ends that.
Where there are children in school, the evening used to end when the sun did. Now it does not.
Families often ask for one light outside. It is the one they use most, and neighbours use it too.
About
Tiago Hernandez started Panels for Panama after visiting his father's country and seeing homes an hour from a city still going dark at six every evening.
The project is small on purpose. Every dollar is tied to a specific kit and a specific house, and the number on this page moves only when a real family gets light. There is no office, no salary, and no overhead to explain.
How this startedEvents
Nothing on the calendar yet. Car washes, school talks, and kit build nights are how most of this gets funded, and the next dates go up here as soon as they are set.
Want to host one at your school or church? Get in touch
All events and how to host oneDonate
Every $400 is one more house with light. We are 5 homes in, with 20 left to reach the goal.
$2,065 raised of $10,000 21%
One LED light and its wiring.
A quarter of a kit, panels included.
A whole home, start to finish.
Opens in a new tab.
Into kits. Panels, batteries, lights, wiring, and the cost of getting a técnico and the hardware out to the house. Nobody draws a salary from this.
We go back at six and twelve months, and the family can call before that. Repairs come out of the same fund, before any new kit is bought.
Yes. $400 covers one complete kit. Write to us and we will tell you which house it went to.
Not yet. Panels for Panama runs as a student led campaign through GoFundMe, which is where the money is held and where every donation is receipted.
Contact
Schools, churches, and anyone who wants to sponsor a kit: write to us. Tiago answers.
You can also message us straight through the GoFundMe page.