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The Safe bottle lamp, called sudeepa or sudipa for good lamp, is a safer kerosene lamp designed by Wijaya Godakumbura [1] of Sri Lanka. The safety comes from heavier glass, a secure screw-on metal lid, and two flat sides which prevent it from rolling if knocked over.
As surgeon Dr. Godakumbura saw many burn cases caused by kerosene lamp fires. Over 1 million homes in Sri Lanka do not have electricity, and rely on kerosene lamps for illumination, often improvised lamps made from bottles. These tall lamps tip easily, and when they do, the wick holder often falls out and starts a sudden, intense fire. Often the fuel falls on a nearby person, setting them ablaze and resulting in severe burns, often fatal.
In 1992, Dr. Godakumbura set out to design a new lamp that was both safer, and inexpensive enough to be affordable by the impoverished Sri Lankans at risk for these fires. [2] The resulting lamp is a small, flattened sphere, which resists tipping and rolling. It is made of thick glass to resist breaking, and has a screw-on metal cap that holds the wick in place and prevents spilling.
In 1993, with contributions from numerous sources, including science fiction writer and Sri Lanka resident Arthur C. Clarke, and the Canadian High Commission, the lamp was put into production.
Available for a cost of less than US$0.25 each, over half a million of the new lamps have been sold, and Dr. Godakumbura hopes to continue producing the new lamps until use of improvised lamps drops to a small percentage of lamp use in Sri Lanka.
Having received a Rolex Award for Enterprise in 1998, Dr. Godakumbura established the Safe Bottle Lamp Foundation (SBLF), a non-profit organization. The Foundation is governed by a board of directors and employs two full-time staff .
In addition to the Rolex Award, the foundation and Dr. Godakumbura have received a range of other local and international awards and grants. Among these are a Lindbergh Foundation Grant and a BBC World Challenge Award. The project has been featured in many international publications such as TIME, Newsweek, Science and Nature, National Geographic and La Figaro. [3]
Dr. Godakumbura has represented the foundation in many international conferences on burn and accident prevention as a speaker or as a participant. The foundation and the Sudeepa lamp have been promoted as a replicable solution for other developing countries where accidental burns due to unsafe lamps is prevalent.
Kerosene, or paraffin, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from Greek: κηρός (kērós) meaning "wax", and was registered as a trademark by Canadian geologist and inventor Abraham Gesner in 1854 before evolving into a generic trademark. It is sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage.
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
A Molotov cocktail is a hand-thrown incendiary weapon consisting of a frangible container filled with flammable substances and equipped with a fuse. In use, the fuse attached to the container is lit and the weapon is thrown, shattering on impact. This ignites the flammable substances contained in the bottle and spreads flames as the fuel burns.
A candle is an ignitable wick embedded in wax, or another flammable solid substance such as tallow, that provides light, and in some cases, a fragrance. A candle can also provide heat or a method of keeping time.
A kerosene lamp is a type of lighting device that uses kerosene as a fuel. Kerosene lamps have a wick or mantle as light source, protected by a glass chimney or globe; lamps may be used on a table, or hand-held lanterns may be used for portable lighting. Like oil lamps, they are useful for lighting without electricity, such as in regions without rural electrification, in electrified areas during power outages, at campsites, and on boats. There are three types of kerosene lamp: flat-wick, central-draft, and mantle lamp. Kerosene lanterns meant for portable use have a flat wick and are made in dead-flame, hot-blast, and cold-blast variants.
An oil lamp is a lamp used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and continues to this day, although their use is less common in modern times. They work in the same way as a candle but with fuel that is liquid at room temperature, so that a container for the oil is required. A textile wick drops down into the oil, and is lit at the end, burning the oil as it is drawn up the wick.
A lantern is an often portable source of lighting, typically featuring a protective enclosure for the light source – historically usually a candle, a wick in oil, or a thermoluminescent mesh, and often a battery-powered light in modern times – to make it easier to carry and hang up, and make it more reliable outdoors or in drafty interiors. Lanterns may also be used for signaling, as torches, or as general light-sources outdoors.
A safety lamp is any of several types of lamp that provides illumination in places such as coal mines where the air may carry coal dust or a build-up of inflammable gases, which may explode if ignited, possibly by an electric spark. Until the development of effective electric lamps in the early 1900s, miners used flame lamps to provide illumination. Open flame lamps could ignite flammable gases which collected in mines, causing explosions; safety lamps were developed to enclose the flame to prevent it from igniting the explosive gases. Flame safety lamps have been replaced for lighting in mining with sealed explosion-proof electric lights, but continue to be used to detect gases.
Juggling torches are one of various props used by jugglers. Torches are usually commercially made props that are made of wood and/or metal with a wick attached at one end. The wick is soaked in liquid fuel, usually paraffin and ignited before use.
The Primus stove was the first pressurized-burner kerosene (paraffin) stove, developed in 1892 by Frans Wilhelm Lindqvist, a factory mechanic in Stockholm. The stove was based on the design of the hand-held blowtorch; Lindqvist's patent covered the burner, which was turned upward on the stove instead of outward as on the blowtorch. The same year, Lindqvist partnered with Johan Viktor Svenson and established J.V. Svenson's Kerosene Stove Factory for manufacturing the new stoves which were sold under the name Primus. The first model was the No.1 stove, which was quickly followed by a number of similarly designed stoves of different models and sizes. Shortly thereafter, B.A. Hjorth & Co., a tool and engineering firm begun in Stockholm in 1889, acquired the exclusive rights to sell the Primus stove.
Vidya Jyothi Dr Wijaya Godakumbura is the President of the Safe bottle lamp Foundation and was formerly a surgeon in Sri Lanka.
Edison screw (ES) is a standard lightbulb socket for electric light bulbs. It was developed by Thomas Edison (1847–1931), patented in 1881, and was licensed in 1909 under General Electric's Mazda trademark. The bulbs have right-hand threaded metal bases (caps) which screw into matching threaded sockets. For bulbs powered by AC current, the thread is generally connected to neutral and the contact on the bottom tip of the base is connected to the "live" phase.
The World Challenge is a competition that was first hosted in 2005 by BBC and sponsored by Newsweek and Shell. It accepts projects from around the world that deal with social, environmental and community issues and uses business methods to try to improve upon those issues in the world.
There have been at least four lighthouses named Chennai Lighthouse or Madras Lighthouse, which face the Bay of Bengal on the east coast of the Indian Subcontinent in Chennai, India.
A blowtorch, also referred to as a blowlamp, is an ambient air fuel-burning gas lamp used for applying flame and heat to various applications, usually metalworking.
Semaphore is the use of an apparatus to create a visual signal transmitted over distance. A semaphore can be performed with devices including: fire, lights, flags, sunlight, and moving arms. Semaphores can be used for telegraphy when arranged in visually connected networks, or for traffic signalling such as in railway systems, or traffic lights in cities.
Dr. Lucian Jayasuriya is a Sri Lankan civil servant and medical manager.
The Great Tower Neuwerk is the most significant building of the Neuwerk island, belonging to Hamburg. Completed in 1310, the structure is one of the oldest worldwide that was used as lighthouse (1814–2014) and still standing. This former beacon, watchtower and lighthouse is also the oldest building in Hamburg and oldest secular building on the German coast.
On 26 April 2019, Sri Lankan security forces and National Thowheeth Jama'ath militants linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant clashed when the security forces raided a house in the town of Sainthamaruthu in Ampara District at around 7:30 pm. The house had been used by the militants to manufacture explosives and suicide vests. Three suicide bombers blew themselves up, killing nine of their family members, including six children, while four other suspects where shot dead by the soldiers. A civilian was killed and two others were injured during the crossfire.
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