News and Announcements
New worlds open up to rural students as schools get access to electricity
Myla, a sixth grader in the remote mountain village of Lumatag, had thought that the ‘hearts’ being celebrated during Valentine’s Day (Araw ng mga Puso) refer to the anatomic heart. When electricity from solar power came to the village nearly a year ago, and a television was installed at their school, she soon found out from an educational television program that the "hearts" spoken of during Valentine’s Day were an allusion to love.
Just like most of her classmates at the elementary school, Myla has never been to the city. Disconnected from the world outside her village by the mountains and by a lack of access to electricity, and therefore, various technologies that run on electricity, Myla was in awe as new worlds opened up to her as she watched entertaining educational programs on television for the first time.
Myla’s story is just one of the stories that the Alliance for Mindanao and Multi-Regional Rural Energy Development Program (AMORE) shared to program partners about its work on providing access to electricity to remote rural schools using renewable energy technologies, at a gathering scheduled in time for the opening of the new school year.
AMORE – a rural electrification program that gives off-grid communities access to renewable energy technologies – gives rural schools access to electricity. Learning enhancement equipment such as ICT (information and communication technology) and educational television are then provided. More than 270 remote schools, most of which are in Mindanao, have been given access to electricity and distance education equipment since 2004, and at least 100 more will be energized until 2013 with help from various corporate and NGO partners. Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems consisting of modules from PV manufacturer, SunPower, become the schools’ source of electricity. More than 60,000 rural students have benefited from the school electrification project.
The AMORE Program is an alliance between the United States Agency for International Development, Department of Energy, SunPower Foundation and Winrock International. The alliance has been energizing homes and communities using renewable energy since 2002.
