Impact Spotlight
Powering key institutions across Taumako with portable off-grid solar systems
Connects Tetoli schools and Ngauta Clinic with rooftop solar and internet, serving 240+ students and more than 1,000 residents
Training youth and women as certified solar and ICT technicians
About
The Vaka Taumako Project Solomon Islands & Vaka Valo Association Trust Board-Incorporated is an Indigenous-led organization based on Taumako Island in Solomon Islands’ remote Duff Islands. The organization works with local communities to strengthen education, livelihoods, cultural knowledge, and access to essential infrastructure in a context where distance and limited transport make basic services, electricity, and connectivity difficult and expensive to access.
Its work includes maintaining and passing on traditional canoe-building and navigation knowledge, while also supporting practical community priorities such as renewable energy, communications, conservation, and skills development. By combining local leadership with new infrastructure and technical training, Vaka Valo helps communities build greater resilience and self-reliance while keeping decision-making and knowledge within Taumako.
“We have restored voyaging traditions by building Tepuke and Tealolili canoes and teaching ancient navigation to the next generation. On Taumako, where electricity and connectivity are scarce, the Solar Connectivity Cooperative brings clean energy and digital access to schools, clinics, Churches,Taumako Parish Center and Tetoha Teaholau Charging community hubs — empowering our people with resilience, equity, and hope.”
HF Partnership
Through this partnership with the Honnold Foundation, the organization seeks to transform Taumako Island into a model of community-led renewable energy and digital inclusion. The project will expand clean energy access by deploying portable solar systems, rooftop arrays, and cyclone-resistant microgrids to power households, schools, clinics, and community hubs across the Duff Islands, while providing reliable electricity and Starlink internet to schools and clinics to enable digital learning, telemedicine, and diaspora engagement for over 1,000 residents.
The partnership will also train and certify local technicians in solar and ICT, building technical capacity and long-term sustainability through community ownership, while linking renewable energy to voyaging workshops, canoe houses, and traditional institutions to reinforce cultural identity alongside modern solutions. It will support cooperatives and micro-enterprises powered by solar energy, reducing reliance on costly diesel and opening pathways for entrepreneurship, directly benefiting approximately 725 individuals, nearly the entire population of Taumako, and serving as a model for other remote Pacific communities.
In the News
