The first action is the expansion throughout Brazil

Litro's writing

In parallel with the founding of Litro de Luz in Brazil, Liter of Light was also developing its first solution: a lamp post composed of a solar panel, a lead-acid battery, a set of LEDs, and a circuit board that controls the system — this allows the solar panel to charge the battery during the day and the LED to be activated only at night. This solution later inspired the development of the solar lamp post.

In 2015, realizing that the context and needs of Brazilian communities were different, Litro de Luz Brasil stopped producing daytime solutions and began working with the nighttime solar lamp post, carrying out its first installation action in June of the same year, in the Vila Beira-Mar Community, located in Rio de Janeiro.

There, 27 solar lamp posts were installed entirely from scratch — all the processes were carried out, from drilling and assembling the pipes to etching the boards and soldering the circuit components.

First controller circuit used in the solar lamp posts and first lamp posts of Litro de

Luz Brasil in the Vila Beira-Mar community

It’s worth noting that among the participants in this action were Laís Higashi and Leonardo Uematsu, who became interested in bringing Litro de Luz to São Paulo and carried out an action in São Bernardo do Campo later that same year.

During the action, held in November in the Vila Moraes community, 30 lamp posts were installed. The following month, during another action in the Vila União community in Florianópolis, 20 more lamp posts were installed.

Laís Higashi is currently the president of Litro de Luz in Brazil, being the second president in the organization’s history, a position she has held since 2016, succeeding Vitor Belota. Leonardo Uematsu is currently the vice president focused on Operations & Technology at Litro de Luz Brasil, a position he has held since 2018.

Litro grew and needed to get organized

Also in 2015, Litro de Luz began to be divided by cities, each with its own dedicated volunteers — what we call “cells.”

The first cells created were: Rio de Janeiro, where the first installation of nighttime solutions took place; São Paulo, now considered the headquarters of Litro; and Florianópolis, where the first pilot projects of Litro de Luz occurred, including the action in the Vila União Community, carried out through a grant from the Commercial and Industrial Association of Florianópolis (ACIF).

Over time, Litro de Luz expanded to more cities and reached other types of communities.

Litro in Brasília

The arrival of Litro in Brasília happened through Larissa Barros and Luisa Correia, who learned about Litro during the National Meeting of Junior Enterprises (ENEJ) in 2015, through a talk given by Vitor Belota.

After aligning everything with Vitor, the two began looking for a community in the region that needed lighting, initiating the project in Brasília and recruiting more volunteers in partnership with ENETEC, the junior enterprise of the University of Brasília (UnB), which helped fund the materials needed for the first actions.

The first action in Brasília took place in 2016 with the support of Codhab (Housing Development Company of the Federal District) and Bancorbras. Thanks to the alignment between the community and Litro and all the work done beforehand, it was possible to prioritize the interests of the residents, as well as their needs in terms of safety and access to lighting.

All this work, which goes far beyond installation, had a very positive impact on both the community and the residents directly involved in the action. I remember Jonatas, a resident of the community who was interested in studying Electrical Engineering. At the time, he said he was 70% sure that’s what he wanted, and after one of the volunteers gave him a study booklet, he became 100% sure he would pursue the degree and follow that career.

From the first action to awards and even more recognition

Also in 2016, Litro de Luz received the “The St. Andrews Prize – For The Environment,” an award resulting from a partnership between the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and ConocoPhilips. This recognition made it possible to achieve one of Litro de Luz’s main goals: bringing lighting to riverside communities in the Amazon, where most families without electricity in Brazil are located. Thus, the Manaus cell, in the state of Amazonas, was also established in 2016.

With the new context in the Amazon, the Litro de Luz team developed the Solar Lantern — a portable solution that can easily be used in various rooms of the house with greater safety.

Photo of the first Lamp developed by Litro de Luz

With the cell created, came the first action in Amazonas, which took place in September 2016, in the indigenous community Dominguinhos. A total of 20 lamp posts and 10 solar lanterns were installed.

The following year, in March 2017, Litro de Luz carried out its first major action, which passed through 7 riverside communities, installing over 200 solutions, mostly lanterns. It was also during this time that Litro de Luz appeared on the "Fantástico" program on Rede Globo, which brought visibility and recognition to the organization’s work.

In parallel with the first action in Amazonas, the Campina Grande cell in Paraíba was founded by André Trócoli, who discovered Litro de Luz during an exchange program in Colombia.

After aligning with Laís, who was already president of Litro, André formed a partnership with IEEE-UFCG (a branch of IEEE at UFCG) and PET Elétrica - UFCG (the Tutorial Education Program at UFCG), founding the Campina Grande cell and becoming an important source of Research and Development for Litro de Luz technology. The first action managed by the Campina Grande cell took place in November 2017, in the Mutirão community, where 10 lamp posts were installed.

In the meantime, several improvements were made to the solar lamp post, such as changing the printed circuit, fixing the panels with a metal profile, introducing a hermetic box to protect the battery, circuit, and electrical connections, replacing the structure of the lamp post head with more resistant pipes, and replacing the lamp socket with a bottle cap to secure the LEDs, among others. All of this led to improvements in the manufacturing of the lamp posts, providing better cost-benefit and making maintenance easier.

Improved lamp post being displayed at Campus Party, in early 2017

The year 2017 was extremely important in the history of Litro. Other key moments to remember include, in September of that year, the first action in a quilombola community, in the Kalunga region, in Prata.

More than 100 solutions, including lamp posts and lanterns, were installed there. The action took place in the Cavalcante region, in Goiás, and was managed by the Brasília cell. In this action, Litro de Luz made an important improvement to the assembly manuals for the solutions: all the explanations and step-by-step instructions were provided using images, eliminating text, which made the communication more accessible, even for those who are illiterate. This methodology is still used today in the creation of Litro's assembly manuals, both for actions and workshops.

Continue getting to know Litro in Part III :)