Achieving a sustainable ideal in our communities sometimes feels like it is just unreachable. Beaten back just a little further out of grasp due to the commotion of our lives. This week, we have a speaker that has clasped that elusive ideal and provided a shining green beacon for the community.

Join us this Friday, April 20th, as we invite Helen Ni, founding director of Green Light-Year to discuss the founding and mission of her nongovernmental organization (NGO), which aims to improve community environmental education and raise awareness of sustainable and low carbon lifestyles.

Green Light-Year’s story originates from an experience with real Climate Change. In the summer of 2013 when Helen and her husband moved to their new property, the abnormally hot summer made their front balcony burn, so she started to look for solutions that provided shade. Eventually, in 2014, she found a good material solar plant and became China’s first civil user of CIGS (a semiconductor material composed of copper, indium, gallium, and selenium) solar cell home power plant, which attracted not only the media, but also an ever-growing number of neighbors.

Helen found out that there was a huge demand for families to learn from a good example of a green lifestyle and parents are happy to bring their kids to join green initiatives, at home or near their home, to feel and experience sustainable development-related examples.

When the total number of visitors to her home reached 800, Helen decided to set up an environmental NGO, so that a dedicated team could manage all visitor information and visits.

Helen transformed her home into an environmental technology “museum.” The visitors bring their children to experience solar energy, an EV car and charging station (the first shared personal charging station of Minhang District, which can also earn her money), an aquaponics system (combining aquaculture and hydroponics), and a vertical farm that uses kitchen waste as compost to realize zero waste of wet garbage.

Green Light-Year provides a number of products and services, some that are free and some that require payment.

FreshStart warmly welcomes all to attend, listen, and ask questions.