The summary below was provided by the Peace Corps Volunteer and the community administering this project.

Surrounded only by cornfields and rice paddies, this small clinic located off a beaten path in the rice belt of Madagascar is the only health facility that serves six farming villages (nearly 14,000 people). There is no electricity for miles, a fact which presents many obstacles for the resident doctor and staff and deters many patients from receiving the appropriate care, an especially concerning situation in cases requiring over-night stays.

Many times the inability to maintain vaccines has meant that parents walked for miles only to discover their children cannot receive the scheduled vaccine and barely 10% of all expecting mothers chose to have their birth attended in the clinic. Other than providing awareness of the risk of acquiring infections and tetanus from unsterilized tools by having the births at home, the hospital can offer very little comfort when there is also no lighting at night and there is an equal risk of mistakes occurring due to lack of electricity.

In essence, a solar panel is imperative to providing appropriate healthcare to all villagers and it is a need that they are all desperate for. Therefore, not only have community members begun to organize community service days to renovate the clinic's exterior, they have begun to donate bricks, cement and labor to help build an addition to the hospital - one that would help house people seeking care and visiting overnight patients. At present there is no such facility and villagers are constantly forced to sit outside and face the elements (rain, wind, sun) while awaiting care.

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