Solarized Homes to Improve and Nurture Education

Jocelyn is a 13-year-old Tboli. She’s a fourth grader in Green Valley Integrated School. She lives right in the middle between the the school and the community-built cottage for teachers.  

She shares her unelectrified home with her parents, infant sibling and her grandmother. Most nights, their home rely on the very dim light of (tree sap) resin-lighting, but she doesn’t like it because it emits too much smoke. When they have money for fuel, they use kerosene lanterns for night light.

She prefers to hang out at her next-door neighbor's home at night, before everyone goes to sleep right after dinner, because they have a flashlight.

Green Valley Integrated School (GVIS) caters to the education of 230 Filipino children belonging to an upland indigenous group known as Tboli, from five different villages in Kiamba, Sarangani Province in the southern part of the Philippines.

The five villages, locally known as sitios, are: Green Valley, Datalbong, Tulad, Banate and Lahak Awa. All sitios are totally disconnected from the grid, but Banate and Lahak Awa have been recipients of a solar electrification project by the national government. The three remaining sitios: Green Valley, Datalbong, and Tulad still rely on fuel-powered (kerosene or gasoline) lanterns and flashlights for night light when they have money to spare. On nights when money is tight, the Tbolis rely on lights from burning tree saps or from burning sacks (when available).

Most parents report to a weekly expenditure of Php45-50/week (USD 0.90 – USD1.00/week) for a three-hour night light using kerosene lanterns. Some parents reported a Php420/month (USD 8.40/month) budget for flashlight batteries for a three-hour night light.

To date, a total of 71 households from Sitios Datalbong and Green Valley had already signed up for the SHINE Green Valley Project, covering a total of 118 GVIS students. Surveys and discussions with Sitio Tulad parents still have to be facilitated. Sitio Tulad requires a three-hour trek from the school, which includes going over mountains and crossing through rivers.

Discussions with the communities (including their tribal chieftains) and the GVIS teachers resulted to the following agreement:

1. 2 light solar home systems will be donated to the school, for the use of students so they can study and do their assignments even at night;
2. All participating households are considered solar custodians, and have 1 school year to qualify for permanent ownership of the solar home systems;
3. Qualification for permanent solar home systems include:

• Parents’ active participation to the school’s vegetable gardening program (the parents will be caretakers of the garden: growing vegetables and maintaining the garden), produce of which will be used by the school’s feeding program to lower malnutrition from within the student population;
• Students’ continued attendance and participation in school. It is common for students to drop out in the middle of the school year, to help their parents in the farms;
• Part of the savings incurred from having solar lighting (they will eradicate or greatly reduce kerosene and flashlight battery expenses) will be pooled by all participating households to build up a solar maintenance trust fund. Amount still has to be determined in future community meetings.

Thank you for your support. If you wish to further help us empower Jocelyn and the GVIS children through their education, donate through the link below. Share the project with your family and friends and help us in #emPOWERinglives.

Links:

• Stiftung Solarenergie Philippines website