June 16th, 2026
Nominated by Signify employee Owen Lewis, a lighting project in the remote village of Kanabea is giving a school, a hospital, and a community the reliable light they need to function after dark.
The village of Kanabea sits deep in the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea, far from the nearest city and accessible only by air. For the 1,000 Kamea people who live there, and the thousands more who travel from across the region for schooling or medical care, the village is a vital hub. But for years, that hub ran on two hours of electricity a day. When the diesel generator cut out, the school went dark, and the hospital stopped.
Owen Lewis, a Signify employee based in Australia, nominated Kanabea through the 2024 Project InVisible employee engagement campaign after learning about the PNG Foundation, a charity that has long supported the Kamea people through infrastructure and supplies. With his nomination as the starting point, the Signify Foundation partnered with the PNG Foundation to bring a range of LED lighting solutions to the village: solar floodlights and streetlights for outdoor and community spaces, weatherproof battens for the school, and emergency lighting and UVC air purifiers for the hospital’s surgical and recovery rooms.
