LIWANAGLIWANAGLIWANAG***

A n A M O R E P r o g r a m N e w s l e t t e rA n A M O R E P r o g r a m N e w s l e t t e r

Volume 1 Issue 2Volume 1 Issue 2March 2012March 2012

*Brightness or luminosity*Brightness or luminosity

An AMORE Program Newsletter

AUGUST 2012 Volume 1 Issue 3

*brightness or luminosity

The Alliance for Mindanao and Multi-Regional

Renewable/Rural Energy Development or AMORE

Program is a collaboration among the Department

of Energy, United States Agency for International Development, SunPower Foundation and Winrock

International toward electrification of remote,

off-grid rural communities using renewable energy

sources such as solar and micro-hydro.

For the past three months – indeed, for the past 10 years – this is what the AMORE program has been trying to do: providing the minimum

capital necessary that would kick start impoverished communities’ development. This capital takes two forms – simple infrastructure for basic services such as electricity, potable water and modern education, and human capital.

During the past three months, we had been busy building up and strengthening this human capital that will ensure sustainable and expanded benefits for the communities.

New organizations – incidentally, all all-women – were formed out of villages that will be energized soon, and the already functioning community organizations were taught how to run their small solar photovoltaic business successfully. With new credit from a partner microfinance institution, these community associations are well on the way to expanding the benefits of PV technology to the rest of the members of their villages.

The first and foremost task of development, according to Muhammad Yunus – founder of Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank – is to turn on the engine of creativity inside each person. Any program that merely meets the physical needs of a poor person is not a true development program unless it leads to the unfolding of his or her creative energy.

The key to ending extreme poverty is to enable the poorest of the poor to get their foot on the ladder of development. They lack the minimum amount of capital necessary to get a foothold, and therefore need a boost up to the first rung. -Jeffrey Sachs

This creative energy is what we aim to develop in communities that have been given the opportunity to extend the benefits of light to their entire village or even to the neighboring villages. It is also what we had in mind when we constructed the solar-powered potable water pump in Cagbalete Island in Mauban, Quezon, complete with a refilling station. If even only 5 percent of the total households in the island bought water from the water refilling station everyday, the water system is poised to generate a substantial revenue that will provide the necessary leverage for more development initiatives in the island.

As for our part, much of our creative energies will be devoted in the coming months to energizing schools and connecting students to modern technology, in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. In June, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the regional government and Department of Education for the electrification of 42 schools in Maguindanao and Tawi-Tawi. Most of our planned school-based potable water projects will also be implemented in the next few months, and will benefit the students in the region tremendously.

By investing in ARMM’s children, the program hopes to give the region the slightest toehold on the ladder to future development.

“ “

1

LAURIE B. NAVARROChief of Party

FROM THE COP’S DESK

This summer season, the sun shone more brightly for the communities of Bantol and Magsaysay in Marilog District,

Davao City as more households began to benefit from earlier rural electrification initiatives in the area. The end of the season, meanwhile, has marked the beginning of brighter living for communities in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) provinces of Maguindanao and Tawi-Tawi, as the AMORE program lays the groundwork for solar photovoltaic (PV) electrification using the consumer-friendly Business Development Assistance (BDA) scheme. An innovative model for renewable energy service delivery, the BDA scheme – in addition to community capacity building on entrepreneurship, and institutional linkaging – is one of AMORE program’s strategies for sustainable and wide-reaching renewable energy solutions to continue improving the lives of rural off-grid communities.

LIWANAG an AMORE Program Newsletter Volume 2 2

BRINGING MODERN ENERGY SERVICES TO RURAL HOUSEHOLDS

3

A notable milestone in AMORE’s efforts to strengthen local community organizations’ ability to engage in renewable energy (RE) business sales and services was reached with a partnership agreement between two BRECDAs (Barangay Renewable Energy and Community Development Association) – Bantol and Magsaysay – in Davao City and the micro-finance institution, CARD-BDSFI (Center for Agriculture and Rural Development-Business Development Service

More credit, more light

HIGH-CAPACITY

MEDIUM-CAPACITY LOW-CAPACITY

Residents choose from among a selection of solar home system and various capacities of solar lanterns – high, medium, low – depending on their capacity to pay for the renewable energy systems.

Twenty-two barangays in Maguindanao and Tawi-Tawi prepare to get energy source from the sunResidents in twenty-two (22) villages, previously energized by the AMORE program, look forward to having more households energized with solar home systems or solar PV lanterns. Under the Business Development Assistance (BDA) scheme, a total of 155 solar home systems and 685 solar lanterns of various capacities are expected to bring light to homes in the two provinces. This is the second batch of homes to be energized under the said scheme; the first batch,

Foundation, Inc.). CARD-BDSFI started a solar PV program with an initial portfolio consisting of 50,000-peso worth of solar lanterns, 30 units of which were sold by the two BRECDAs to members of their communities. The two village associations are required to pay 20 percent of the total worth of the loaned PV products, and the remaining balance over a six-month period. By June 2012, the Magsaysay BRECDA had placed orders anew for 62 units of solar lanterns ranging from medium to high capacity.

implemented in early 2012, saw rural homes in 21 communities in Davao City and the Zamboanga Peninsula energized with various solar equipment. The BDA is an innovative approach that facilitates commercial sale and sustainable operations of renewable energy systems in underserved, unenergized rural market, through the use of financing and delivery mechanisms that are within the reach and capacity to pay of the target household market.

LIWANAG an AMORE Program Newsletter Volume 2

The training on entrepreneurship, put together by the AMORE program in May and June 2012, were just what Floremante needed to finally nudge him into expanding the solar business. The trainings are aimed to support intensification of household electrification by introducing sustainability mechanisms and direction for the BRECDAs’ businesses. Officers of BRECDAs of Bantol and Magsaysay in Davao City; and Sagacad, Pedagan,

4

Licuroan, Panampalay and Bagumbayan in Zamboanga del Norte had the opportunity to listen to business expertise provided by resource persons from the Department of Trade and Industry and micro-finance organization, CARD.

The two-leg training was held with support from the International Copper Association-Southeast Asia.

As the chairman of the Magsaysay BRECDA, Floremante Labarca is happy with the organization’s near 100 percent collection rate on monthly payments for the solar PV products put in the care of the BRECDA less than a year ago. Financially, they are in good standing to offer products to more members in the community, but Floremante had dared not be bold and expand the business for fear of losing money and driving the business aground.

Solar PV StoreMagsaysay BRECDA’s

Solar PV Business 101

SITAWA Chairwoman Christine Rose Abalayan addresses officers and members during the induction ceremony. The women’s organization was revived to manage the solar home systems to be given by AMORE and the Aboitiz Foundation.

A campaign was launched that educates residents on how, with proper used lead-acid battery disposal and recycling, they could earn while protect their health and the environment.

5

In rural villages selected by AMORE and project partner Aboitiz Foundation for renewable energy electrification, women take the lead in community associations organized to handle the systems’ operation and maintenance and the expansion of the rural electrification initiative to include more households in the village and the neighboring communities. Leaders of two associations – the Sibulan Tagabawa Women’s Association (SITAWA) of Brgy. Sibulan in Davao City, and the Kiblan Solar Home Association (KISHA) of Brgy. Coronon in Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur – took their oath of office in separate ceremonies held on July 5th and 6th, respectively. An old organization revived for the purpose of managing the solar home systems, SITAWA currently has women Tagabawans – an indigenous people tribe – at the helm, while KISHA – a new association formed by AMORE – has women IP leaders for the organization’s topmost position as well. Electrification in the third village to be energized through the AMORE-Aboitiz collaboration – Brgy. Baganihan in Davao City – is led by an existing community association, the Kilusan ng Kababaihan sa Barangay Baganihan (Barangay Baganihan Women’s Association). Social and community preparation have been done in these communities, and actual electrification is expected to happen in the next few months.

Women power to harness solar power in Davao’s rural villages

Villagers take on the issue of used lead-acid batteries KKK-styleKapaligiran, Kalusugan, Kayamanan (Environment, Health, Wealth) is the Bantol and Magsaysay villagers’ battle cry on the subject of toxic used lead-acid batteries from solar photovoltaic systems. Officials of the Bantol and Magsaysay Barangay Renewable Energy and Community Development Association signed on July 25, 2012 a service agreement with Oriental & Motolite Marketing Corporation, and Philippine Recyclers, Inc. (PRI) for the collection and recycling of used lead-acid batteries or ULAB. Under the agreement, the village associations are responsible for collecting ULABs from households in the village, and for contacting Motolite which buys the ULABs from the BRECDAs and transporting them for recycling to PRI. This collection system will be replicated among strategically clustered AMORE-energized villages. Residents of the villages have been trained on proper battery handling, and are aware of the toxic elements in a battery and its potential harmful effects to human health and the environment. The battery of the solar home system runs out after two to three years of use.

P

KINAIYAHAN

KABASKOG SA

PANGLAWAS

KAKAGTANGAN

PUMPING UP HEALTHIER LIVESTHROUGH ACCESS TO SAFE WATER The first rain showers of the rainy season were welcomed by residents who are by now aware that that same rainwater that falls to the ground is the same safe, potable water that comes out of the newly constructed water systems – spring-fed or solar-powered water pump – in their villages and schools. Together with constructing potable water systems in poor, rural communities, the AMORE program organizes community members into a water association and equips them with knowledge of their natural ecosystem’s processes and proper care.

Villagers organize into Water AssociationsVillage residents begin to take leadership in the operation and maintenance of their community’s potable water supply after having been organized by AMORE into a Barangay Water System Association or BAWASA. A BAWASA in 10 out of 13 community-based water systems has been organized and registered with the Department of

LIWANAG an AMORE Program Newsletter Volume 2 6

Labor and Employment, the members of each trained on technical systems operation and basic organization and financial management. Stakeholders in schools – including the Parents-Teachers Association and student organizations – that host five out of 14 school-based potable water systems were similarly given trainings on effective operation and management of the water systems and proper sanitation and hygiene.

7

Solar technology powers water enterprise in Cagbalete IslandIn the island of Cagbalete – lying 13 kilometers from the Mauban municipality port, along the waters of Lamon Bay and Pacific Ocean – solar photovoltaic (PV) technology has not only powered up lights and educational television at the island’s elementary school, but has also only recently begun to power up entrepreneurship with the construction of a water refilling station that is looking to serve the potable water needs of the island’s more than

1The potable water system is a source of a new enterprise in the island that has the potential to generate revenues for further development projects for the community.

A 420-watt peak solar PV system powers a LORENTZ PS1200 engine to pump up water for storage at the 12-cubic meter ferro-cement reservoir in Cagbalete island.

2,000 households. AMORE, in cooperation with project partners Quezon Power and Mauban municipal government, constructed a 12-cubic meter concrete water reservoir that is filled with water pumped up from the ground by power generated by two units of 210-watt peak SunPower solar PV panels. The water project administrator – Cagbalete Elementary School – plans to sell safe, potable water to residents in the island for 25 pesos for a 20-liter container – a big 30 pesos savings from their usual water expenditure. If even only 5 percent of the total households in the island bought water from the

water refilling station everyday, the water system is poised to generate a revenue of more than 900,000 pesos annually. The income-generating project will provide the necessary leverage for more development initiatives in the island.

Teachers and school heads from as far away as Sibutu – the Philippines’ most southernmost municipality, found only 14 kilometers east of the coast of Sabah, Malaysia – flocked to the ARMM Regional Complex in Cotabato

The students’ return to school in June was literally made brighter by lights and educational television running on solar

photovoltaic (PV) technology in the island of Isla Verde in Batangas City, while students in the ARMM provinces of Maguindanao and Tawi-Tawi go back to schools soon to be installed with the same educational equipment. By investing on children’s education, the AMORE program truly makes access to electricity through renewable energy a platform for sustainable community development for poor communities.

Heads and teachers of 42 elementary schools in Maguindanao and Tawi-Tawi signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the AMORE program for the schools’ electrification using solar PV technology.

Hundreds of schools in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are still without access to electricity as the mural depicts.

The AMORE program’s education initiatives in the ARMM are in cooperation with the regional government and Department of Education. In photo are (l-r) ARMM Governor’s Chief of Staff Amihilda Sangcopan, AMORE Chief of Party Laurie Navarro, and DepEd-ARMM Asst. Sec. Mohammad Noor Saada.

FIRING UP STUDENTS’ LEARNING THROUGH MODERN EDUCATION EQUIPMENT

City on June 11, 2012 to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the AMORE program for their schools’ electrification through solar PV technology. More than 10,000 students in 42 schools in the two provinces of Maguindanao and Tawi-

Tawi will begin to enjoy the benefits of electricity and multimedia-based education equipment, after the forging of a cooperation agreement signed by high-level representatives of the Department of Education-ARMM and ARMM regional government. The ARMM

has been a major site of community development projects initiated by the AMORE program since 2002. Nearly half of the total AMORE-energized schools in Mindanao are in ARMM.

LIWANAG an AMORE Program Newsletter Volume 2 8

On to a brighter, energized ARMM!

On May 26, 2012, six 1-kilowatt peak solar PV systems and educational television equipment were turned over to school administrators and community members of Isla Verde in Batangas City in an event led by AMORE project partner, One Meralco Foundation. Timed right before the opening of classes, the inauguration event had in attendance Department of Energy Undersecretary Jose Layug, Jr., Department of Education Secretary Armin Luistro, USAID Acting Mission Director Reed Aeschliman, AMORE Chief of Party Laurie Navarro, One Meralco Foundation Executive Director Jeffrey Tarayao, SunPower Corporation’s Ana Coscolluela, Meralco corporate officers, Meralco’s “Ang liwanag ng bukas” (The future is bright) Ambassador Shamcey Supsup, and Batangas City local government unit representatives. More than a thousand students of the six elementary schools of the island will benefit from the renewable energy-ran lights and educational television.

9

All of the six elementary schools at Isla Verde

have been energized using a 1-kilowatt

solar modules from the SunPower

Foundation. The school electrification projects

in the island are a collaboration between

the AMORE program and One Meralco

Foundation.

Narcisa Darlo, a Grade 6 Science teacher at the Balite Elementary School in Marilog District, Davao City, attributes the school’s notable improvement in science in last year’s National Achievement Test to their regular use of educational television. Up by nearly 100 percent, Balite’s score in 2011 increased to 70 percent from 34 percent the year before. While Ms. Darlo’s experience is pretty much a common occurrence among rural schools electrified with solar PV technology and then installed with educational television, the AMORE program does not rest on its laurels and keep thinking up ways to optimize the benefits teachers and students can derive from the education equipment.

This is why AMORE had prepared a reference manual on how to enrich the existing Department of Education grade school science curriculum, specifically on the topic of renewable energy – a subject that is increasingly becoming relevant alongside climate change. Lesson plans based on the reference materials, and incorporating fun and engaging activities for students, were pilot tested among 16 grades 4 to 6 teachers from AMORE-ssisted schools in the Marilog and Kaputian Districts, in a training-workshop from June 28 to 29, 2012 held in Davao City. Revisions to the draft manual will be made based on the results of the workshop and feedback from the teacher-participants. The 2-day workshop was held with support from the International Copper Association-Southeast Asia.

The future is bright indeed for Isla Verde students

Teachers learn ways to infuse lessons on renewable energy with energy!

Just as darkness is lifted from the schools in the island, a solar panel is

raised during the project inauguration by (l-r) DOE

USec. Jose Layug, Jr., a Meralco official, Meralco’s

Ambassador of Light Shamcey Supsup, USAID Deputy Mission Director

Reed Aeschliman, OMF Exec. Dir. Jeffrey Tarayao and

DepEd Sec. Armin Luistro.

Gemma Abag is a typical mother in a rural village. She manages the household, is a helpmate to her farmer husband, and is a devoted mother to her three young children. And as is typical of every Matigsalog mother who had been born – and decided to stay on – in the village of Marilog on the mountains of Davao del Sur, she lives every day and every

Partners in Development Shining Through

GEMMA ABAGThe journey from darkness to light, housewife to solar entrepreneur

night with the reality that electricity service is not something that she could rely on to help her in her wifely and motherly duties. She sees her children struggling to do their homework under the flickering gas lamp whose smoke catches in their throats, and it will be up to her – as the proverbial Ilaw ng Tahanan – to finally bring light to the household.

The opportunity for her family to finally experience the conveniences of light arrived in April this year with the coming of the Alliance for Mindanao and Multi-Regional Renewable/Rural Energy (AMORE) Development Program into their village, bringing solar home systems and solar lanterns. For Gemma, though, light – sourced

from solar photovoltaic (PV) sources – was not the only thing that presented itself to her; like a beacon, the solar PV technology that was recently introduced to residents in the village has guided her on to a path never before taken by a typical Matigsalog woman – that of a solar entrepreneur.

01 Gemma Abag quite enjoys her role as the secretary of the Marilog Solar Women Association.

02The lease tariff is based on the residents’ monthly expenditure for kerosene. A member can own a solar lantern by paying Php150 a month for up to 25 months.

03Members of the association gathered on April 26th to receive the solar lanterns under AMORE’s Business Development Assistance scheme.

04The proud new owners of solar lanterns with John Smith of the Well of Life Foundation

01

02

03

04

As a tribute to the Mother’s Day celebrations held in May, we are featuring the stories of two mothers in this edition’s In the Spotlight. – editor

LIWANAG an AMORE Program Newsletter Volume 2 10

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Gemma’s journey began earlier than April. It in fact began in October of the previous year when Well of Life, a Davao-based NGO that had then been assisting residents in the village through organic farming and livelihood projects, sought out the AMORE program for the possibility of a household electrification project in Brgy. Marilog. The AMORE program the year before installed solar home systems in two neighboring villages, and at the time was in the middle of rolling out a new scheme that hoped to facilitate commercial sale to and sustainable operations of PV systems in underserved rural market. Called the Business Development Assistance or BDA package, the scheme uses financing and delivery mechanisms that are within the reach and capacity to pay of the target household market.

The prospect of the AMORE program working in Brgy. Marilog was bright. An association of women – of which Gemma was a member – laid dormant for so long after having been organized many years before by a village councilor was revived by Well of Life and renamed the Marilog Solar Women Association (MSWA).

The role of women in community development has long been regarded as invaluable. The AMORE program itself recognizes the woman’s natural nurturing predisposition, and looks to them for the long-term care and maintenance of the renewable energy systems. Early this year, the program held weeklong trainings on PV operation, maintenance and troubleshooting in four cities – Pagadian, Dipolog, Zamboanga and Cotabato – that had been participated in by a total of 65 women from AMORE project sites across Mindanao.

It is the truth that more than their husbands who are more mobile from searching for jobs in the fields and in the big cities, it is the women that stay on in the community. As they are the first to be alarmed when basic necessities in the household are lacking, it is they, for certain, who will not allow a most enjoyed convenience such as light to be snatched away from them because of poor maintenance.

It took the AMORE program three months to prepare the women for the new undertaking. The solar PV project requires of the women two sets of skills – that of a technician’s on the one hand, and of an entrepreneur’s on the other. They

were after all to be custodians of 88 units of solar lanterns and two solar PV battery charging stations, and whether they could manage to extend the benefits of light to many more households in their village and for how long rest entirely upon their shoulders.

The Marilog Solar Women Association, 150-member strong, has proven to have very capable shoulders.

A few weeks into project implementation, MSWA find themselves with 3,900 pesos from participation fees payments (Php100.00) and fees (Php5.00 for each additional night) collected from the lease-to-own scheme that they began to implement. Included in the amount is the Php10.00 that the solar lantern lessee paid each time he or she recharged the equipment at the solar PV charging station.

In the coming weeks, the MSWA will add solio chargers – small solar chargers with internal rechargeable battery ideal for charging cellphones and PDAs, and can power up small LED lights for task lighting – to their current portfolio of solar PV products. As part of the AMORE program’s continuing support to budding solar entrepreneurs, especially those that demonstrate ability in managing and expanding the business, the MSWA will be given 16 units of solio chargers that the organization can either offer as incentive to clients buying PV products on a cash basis, or use to operate a cellphone charging business.

The tariff – Php5.00 per night for solar lantern rental – that the MSWA has decided to collect is largely based on the amount the residents spend for kerosene. Households spend some 150 to 300 pesos – excluding transportation costs – monthly for kerosene. Under the lease-to-own scheme, residents can own the lantern after up to 25 months of paying for as low as Php150 a month.

Because of its affordability, it is no wonder that many of the households in the village are interested to lease a solar lantern from the MSWA. The women’s organization has not cracked a tenth of the market; more than 2,600 families live in the village, and at the moment only 88 units of solar lanterns are being leased to serve the residents’ lighting needs.

That is a predicament that the women’s association hopes to solve by partnering with the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development, a microfinance institution that has begun speaking to them about expanding the business and possibly getting more solar PV equipment that they would manage and lease out on either on a short-term or long-term basis. This way, the benefits of light may reach the rest of the families, and no mother shall have to watch her children choke on kerosene smoke again.

11

The solar PV project requires of the women two sets of skills – that of a technician’s on the one hand, and of an entrepreneur’s on the other.

Whether they could manage to extend the benefits of light to many more

households in their village and for how long rest entirely upon their shoulders.

The Marilog Solar Women Association, 150-member strong, has proven to have

very capable shoulders.

“

“

Narcisa Darlo had just given birth to her firstborn when she was transferred to the Balite Elementary School, some 60

kilometers up on the hills and away from the nearest commercial center in Davao City. Over the next nineteen years, the now 44-year old educator would have three more children – or 600 more, if you ask the generations of pupils who all studied under her on their final year in grade school before moving on to high school either in Marilog or Calinan.

Indeed it’s the same motherly love that takes her away from her children’s bed hours before dawn and on to the Davao-Bukidnon highway, and finally into a classroom filled with young faces beaming with anticipation. Getting back home from the school is no less easy: the wait for a Davao City center-bound bus could take hours; jeepneys plying the Bukidnon-Davao City national highway route are scarce, and so are private vehicles willing to give a ride to teachers signalling to hitchhike. She is still lucky, though, she knows. Other teachers that are assigned to the more remote, isolated areas of the Marilog District do not have the luxury of going back home everyday; many of

NARCISA DARLOOn the road less travelled

LIWANAG an AMORE Program Newsletter Volume 2 12

them live in the school where they teach and only get to see their families on weekends or school holidays. These teachers live under the same conditions that the community lives in day in and day out – no electricity, no water systems that will make potable water available at a turn of a faucet, no convenience of one’s own cushioned bed.

To be a teacher in the country’s rural areas is to embark – quite literally – on a road less travelled. Having to live away from their families for most of the year was only one sacrifice; the other is the everyday challenge of making do with scant resources available in the constantly under-budgeted education system. But it’s a road that Narcisa does not resent having taken because her gains, while non-monetary, are no less rewarding – she is an instrument through which her students, 20 percent of whom belong to the indigenous people tribes of Matigsalog and Bagobo, are propelled to reach greater achievements, to be more in life.

And she has recently gotten help. In August 2010, the school began to have energy access using solar technology, and the students began to watch educational programs on television. On television!

01

02

03

01 Ma’am Narcisa has acted both as a mother and teacher to all pupils that studied under her before moving on to high school.

02The nearly 300 students – 20 percent of whom are from the Matigsalog tribe – of the Balite Elementary School displayed the advantages they gained from educational television with their school’s good performance – from 37 percent the year before to 70 percent in S.Y. 2011-2012 – at the National Achievement Tests.

03Teacher-participants to the workshop on how to teach the subject of renewable energy demonstrate how potential energy is transformed to kinetic energy.

13

Many of these students, having lived and stayed only in Balite all their life, watched on television for the first time.

Ma’am Darlo – as she is called by students and fellow teachers – suddenly found teaching so much easier and enjoyable. She recalls her previous attempts at illustrating the body’s circulatory system, her poor drawings of a human heart and blood that looked no more than a first-grader’s squiggles, and understood her young students’ quick losing of interest.

Balite’s students have become more engrossed in their learning with the coming of educational television. Like a sponge, they seem to be taking in with enraptured attention just about everything that they watch – the illustrations and diagrams on the science lessons, the stick numbers on mathematics lessons, the drama on the history and civic education lessons, and the beautiful foreign sounds on the

English lessons.All this attention has paid off. The elementary school’s overall performance at the latest National Achievement Tests showed a remarkable improvement to 70 percent from a failing 37 percent in S.Y. 2009-2010.

This stellar performance was what Ma’am Darlo reported to teachers from the Marilog and Kaputian Districts in Davao del Sur during a training-workshop on renewable energy basic education curriculum facilitated by the Alliance for Mindanao and Multi-Regional Renewable/Rural Energy (AMORE) Development or AMORE Program on June 28-29, 2012.

While Ma’am Darlo’s school’s experience is pretty much a common occurrence among rural schools electrified with solar PV technology and then installed with educational television, the AMORE program does

not rest on its laurels and keep thinking up ways to optimize the benefits teachers and students can derive from the education equipment.

This is why AMORE had prepared a reference manual on how to enrich the existing Department of Education grade school science curriculum, specifically on the topic of renewable energy – a subject that is increasingly becoming relevant alongside climate change. Lesson plans based on the reference materials, and incorporating fun and engaging activities for students, were pilot tested among 16 grades 4 to 6 teachers.

Ma’am Darlo – the long journey back to the school notwithstanding – couldn’t wait to go back and try out the new teaching techniques among her beloved students.

To be a teacher in the country’s rural areas is to embark – quite literally – on a road less travelled. But it’s a road that Narcisa does not resent having taken because her gains, while non-monetary, are no less rewarding – she is an instrument through which her students, 20 percent of whom belong to the indigenous people tribes of Matigsalog and Bagobo, are propelled to reach greater achievements, to be more in life.

“

“

On March 21, 2012 energy companies, Aboitiz – through its foundation – and Quezon Power became the AMORE program’s newest partners in making renewable energy sources within the reach of poor unenergized households in remote, off-grid areas in the Davao

and Quezon provinces. With the AMORE program’s signing of memorandum of understanding with the two companies, more than 400 and 60 households in Davao and Quezon provinces, respectively, are poised to be energized with either a solar home system or a solar lantern.

USAID Office of Energy and Environment Deputy Chief Joseph Foltz

Winrock International Environment Group Vice President William Howley

Department of Energy Undersecretary Jose Layug, Jr.

LIWANAG an AMORE Program Newsletter Volume 2 14

01

01Aboitiz Foundation President and CEO Jon Ramon Aboitiz and AMORE representative, Winrock International Environment Group Vice President William Howley sign a memoradum of understanding for electrification of some 426 households in the Davao region.

02Mauban municipality Fernando Llamas, Winrock International’s William Howley and Quezon Power General Manager Simo Santavirta sign a memorandum of understanding for electrification of 60 households in Cagbalete island.

03The hotel lobby was made to

approximate a typical rural village where the AMORE program implements projects.

04Various types and models of solar photovoltaic products were on display.

05A prototype of a micro-hydro power plant showed to the guests how power was generated from run-of-river systems.

06The ‘tree of knowledge’ shows the seeds – alternative energy infrastructure, love and thirst for learning, community bond – and

fruits – more effective and impactful instruction, fun and interactive learning, improved overall school performance, and strengthened community bond – of AMORE’s school electrification and education projects.

07Alliance for community development: (r-l) USAID’s Joseph Foltz, Aboitiz Foundation’s Jon Ramon Aboitiz, Winrock International’s William Howley and DOE’s Jose Layug, Jr.

08Representatives of the primary partners of the AMORE program turn

the switch on for light to come through to off-grid rural communities – (l-r) DOE’s Jose Layug, Jr., USAID’s Joseph Foltz, AMORE program’s Laurie Navarro, Winrock International’s William Howley, and SunPower’s Jascha Ortmanns.

09A Capella Manila rendered beautiful performances.

10Event guests watch a video documentary on the impact of AMORE’s rural electrification initiatives in Mindanao.

In the midst of rural electrification stakeholders, AMORE welcomes new partners, Aboitiz Foundation and Quezon Power

AMORE Chief of PartyLaurie Navarro

02 03 04

05

06

07

08

09

10

01Twenty students and residents from AMORE project sites in Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat, Surigao del Sur and the Zamboanga peninsula participated in the KLIK! community video documentation project. A two-leg basic filmmaking training was held in Davao and Dipolog cities in February 2012.

02A Davao training participant tries her hand at using the camcorder to record project impact.

03Three elementary students participated in the documentation project.

04Ms. Merlyn Reganon, a trained BRECDA solar technician from the solar PV-energized village of Bagumbayan in Osmeňa, Zamboanga del Norte, was one of the winners of the KLIK! video documentation project. In photo are (l-r) USAID’s Joseph Foltz, Ms. Merlyn Reganon, AMORE’s Laurie Navarro, and Winrock International’s William Howley.

05Sharing the win was Mr. Tahir Lucas from the micro-hydro power plant-energized village of Sapad in Matanog, Maguindanao.

Lights. Camera. Action!

Outputs of the twenty (20) participants to the Mga Kuha at LIkha Mula sa Kanayunan (KLIK!) video documentation project were shown at a gathering of AMORE program partners and stakeholders at the Shangri-la Plaza, Manila on March 21, 2012. The documentation

project was participated in by young students, teachers and community members who showed, though footages taken through a camcorder, how light and safe water have impacted their respective community’s life. The participants had previously attended a session on basic

filmmaking facilitated by AMORE communications personnel, where they were taught how to use the camcorders and storytelling techniques.

Those that most clearly told their community’s story were invited to the event at Shangri-la Plaza.

15

These were Ms. Merlyn Reganon from the solar PV-energized barangay of Bagumbayan in Osmeňa, Zamboanga del Norte; and Mr. Tahir Lucas from the micro-hydro power plant-energized village of Sapad in Matanog, Maguindanao.

A video documentary on AMORE’s rural electrification work, The business of giving “power” to the people, tells the stories of how access to energy

has ignited the community members’ creativity towards their own development. It takes you to Sitio Lam-alis in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat – where a micro-hydro power plant was constructed in 2004 – and how it has fuelled community development; to Brgy. Bantol in Marilog District, Davao City where residents have ably maintained a solar photovoltaic battery charging station put up in 2004; to the mountain village of Pedagan in Mahayag, Zamboanga del Sur, where residents have benefited from a collaboration between a renewable energy supplier and a microfinance institution; and, finally, to Cotabato City where an enterprising individual was able to build a business that brings solar technologies to unserved rural markets in Central Mindanao.

KLIK! video documentation projects by community membersshown to AMORE program partners

01 02

03

04

05

Head Office:Unit 68 6/F Landco Corporate Center

J.P. Laurel Avenue, Ba jada, Davao City 8000T/F: (63 82)2822517

Satellite Office:2401 Jollibee Plaza Bldg., F. Ortigas, Jr. Road

Ortigas Center, Pasig City 1600T: (63 2)6879283/6321233 F: (63 2)6312809

www.amore.org.ph

This publication is made possible by the supportof the American people through the United States Agency for International Development.

The contents are the responsibility of Winrock Internationaland do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.