Colombia- Project Noche Grata- Lighting the Way For La Guajira
In 2025, Give To The World and Tierra Grata have embarked on a new project: Noche Grata. This aims to continue expanding impact through the installation of community solar streetlights that brighten paths, public spaces and schools. This will assist in reinforcing safety and a collective life within the participating communities.
Since 2021, Tierra Grata and Give to the World have built a strong partnership based on trust, cooperation, and a shared commitment to improving living conditions for historically excluded communities. Through this collaboration, solar energy, safe water, and sanitation solutions have been delivered in La Guajira, impacting over 1,200 people. Programs such as Escuela Grata and Tienda Grata have enabled families to preserve food through solar-powered refrigeration and transformed schools into centers of community life and learning.
Our partner Tierra Grata believes that essentials must be available to everyone. Tierra Grata has worked side by side with rural, peasant, indigenous and Afro-descendant communities across Colombia to secure access to clean energy, safe drinking water, sanitation and connectivity using decentralized, low-cost, environmentally friendly social technologies that are easy to install and maintain. This approach promotes structural change by strengthening community autonomy, environmental conservation, and social cohesion—fostering dignity, participation, and long-term sustainability.
Project Noche Grata – 2025 Implementation
Noche Grata brings light back to paths, schools and communal spaces that remain dark after sunset. Through this initiative, Tierra Grata installed solar streetlight poles that provide autonomous, safe and sustainable public lighting to rural communities without grid access. Each pole includes an independent photovoltaic system, rechargeable batteries and low-consumption LED luminaires, capable of delivering up to 12 continuous hours of illumination per night.
Project Noche Grata 2025 was implemented in 9 rural communities in La Guajira. With the support of Give to the World donors and our partnership with Tierra Grata, 76 community solar luminaires were installed, benefiting 1,081 individuals.
Lighting locations were selected through participatory community processes, prioritizing shared paths, transit areas, schools, and high-use communal spaces to ensure the intervention directly responded to local needs. This phase was further strengthened through collaboration with the Signify Foundation, whose technical expertise and in-kind support helped expand reach and sustainability.
In order to achieve communal autonomy, Project Noche Grata used Tierra Grata’sSocial Intervention Model (MISTIG), integrating co-creation, education and shared responsibility throughout all stages of implementation.
For Noche Grata, the community counterparts provided:
Material transport support from the municipal headquarter to the community
Collective labor to dig holes and prepare the ground for pole installation
Preparation and application of concrete mix to secure the poles
Participatory selection of the darkest and highest-use points for installation
Additionally, each of the 9 communities elected a ‘Guardian of the Light,’ who received technical and social training to carry out basic maintenance and promote the collective care of the luminaires. This communal autonomy and responsibility ensures the sustainability of this project, creating a process of community organization and shared well-being.
Key Achievements – 2025
Reach: Nine communities; 1,081 individuals positively impacted
Mobility & Safety: Improved night-time movement and safer communal spaces
Community Ownership: Strengthened social cohesion, participation, and shared responsibility
Why It Matters:
The rancherías of La Guajira, inhabited mainly by Wayúu indigenous communities, face significant gaps in access to basic services and development opportunities. Rural communities in La Guajira are limited to daylight due to their lack of grid infrastructure. To obtain basic household goods, medicines, or hygiene items, families must travel long distances—which can take between 40 minutes and up to two hours on difficult-to-access routes—increasing costs and reducing their quality of life. By restoring light after sunset, Noche Grata enables safer mobility, stronger community connections, and expanded economic and social activity—strengthening food security and collective well-being.
Escuela Grata 2026: Transforming Rural Education in Colombia
In 2026, Tierra Grata is aiming to implement the proven Escuela Grata program in six rural schools across Cauca and Montes de María, regions historically affected by armed conflict and exclusion from basic services. Escuela Grata pairs infrastructure with sustainability. Built on Tierra Grata’s decade of experience with Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and rural communities, this model ensures schools become self-sufficient centers of learning and community life, not dependent on external aid. By delivering the same basic services—energy, water, sanitation, and internet—that urban schools take for granted, Escuela Grata is not only improving classrooms; it is investing in the next generation of leaders shaping more resilient, peaceful communities in Colombia.
Program at a glance
6 rural schools supported across Cauca and Montes de María, regions historically affected by armed conflict and exclusion from basic services
3 solar energy systems powering lighting, fans, and connectivity in off-grid schools
6 water filtration systems delivering 1,100 liters of safe drinking water per day
6 new or improved sanitation facilities, ensuring dignity, safety, and menstrual hygiene—especially for girls
6 satellite internet connection points expanding digital access for schools and surrounding communities
136 students benefiting from improved daily learning conditions
15 teachers trained in digital pedagogy and technology-enabled learning
Classrooms equipped with computers and projectors to strengthen teaching and learning
Local Guardians networks established, engaging parents, teachers, and students in long-term system care and sustainability
Donation Menu
$1,000 — Strengthens learning conditions in one rural school
Contributes to priority upgrades within a rural school, supporting essential learning conditions such as access to safe water, sanitation, connectivity, or educational resources, based on assessed needs.
$2,500 — Advances a school toward full functionality
Supports multiple upgrade components in a rural school, helping move it closer to a safe, dignified, and functional learning environment for students and teachers.
$5,000 — Drives meaningful transformation in one school
Contributes to integrated improvements in a rural school, combining infrastructure upgrades, teacher support, and community engagement to strengthen long-term educational outcomes.
$10,000 — Enables comprehensive school transformation
When pooled, supports near-complete transformation of a high-need rural school, integrating essential services, educational tools, and sustainability measures that benefit both students and the surrounding community.
All amounts are illustrative examples of how contributions support the overall Escuela Grata program. Contributions are pooled and applied to the total approved program budget and do not represent stand-alone or earmarked funding for specific schools or components.
