Cell phones are a vital lifeline for refugees to stay in contact with loved ones, browse through photos of those they cannot see face to face and also for communication regarding their asylum seeker claims.
Electricity is scarce in the overcrowded camps and accommodations in which they dwell, making it quite difficult to keep their cell phone’s battery charged and the phone operational.
Last summer on a visit to the Greek island of Samos, 20-year-old Alexandros Angelopoulos witnessed this phenomenon.
“People started asking for my phone to call family and to use the internet,” Angelopoulos said to ibtimes.com.
A team of students from Edinburgh University are hoping to change the circumstances and help out migrants to charge their phones. From Angelopoulos trip, the idea was born that they could develop charging stations using renewable and free of charge.
That is exactly what they did as the they started Project Elpis, meaning “hope” in Greek, and have designed a mobile phone charging station powered only by the sun, something of which Greece has plenty.
So far they have installed two units in camps with each unit capable of generating electricity for 12 plugs an hour and will provide free power to as many as 240 people per unit each day.
These first two units had help in design and development by the Greek solar technology company Entec.
Now another three units are underway funded by crowdfunding and hope to have many more in the works soon to reach as many camps as soon as possible.
Both authorities and residents at the camp are elated at the installments of the solar-powered charging stations.
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