Daily Tribune (Philippines) - HotSpot
Powering up students
Giving hope to underserved communities
Education has the power to change lives. Information and knowledge are important in producing capable individuals and in nationbuilding. Thus, governments endeavor to educate their citizens and help them acquire the tools to compete in the global marketplace. In the Philippines, an archipelagic country that accounts for 1.4 percent of the global population, education is a privilege. Latest figures from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) show nine percent of the estimated 39.2 million Filipinos aged six to 24 years old are out-of-school youth.
Although the education portfolio has the highest allocation under the 2019 budget plan with P659.3 billion at its disposal, students in so-called off-grid areas are often deprived of proper education simply because these communities do not have access to electricity. While the rest of the world extract the most benefits from technological advances that develop at breakneck speed, underprivileged students in far-flung areas grow ignorant in the dark.
That darkness comes with a heavy price. Lowland dwellers take for granted such basic equipment as computers, smartphones, television sets, electric fans or even light bulbs – which are items the underprivileged often see only in books.
The lack of electricity means students from off-grid schools, already disadvantaged, are denied the wealth of information provided by Google, unable to work on a school presentation using PowerPoint and miss out on audio-visual learning tools that are truly effective channels of information.
This was the back story that One Meralco Foundation (OMF) committed to champion by spreading the light further up in the hills.
Doomed to darkness
In an interview with the Daily Tribune, Jeffrey O. Tarayao, Chief Corporate Social Responsibility Officer and President at OMF, brought us back in time to when they first envisioned a Philippines where everyone has access to electricity and proper education.
“We want to make considerable impact so we chose to power schools that do not have access to electricity. We believe that without access to electricity, you also don’t have access to many other things like internet connection and multimedia-aided learnings, to name a few,” Tarayao said.
Formerly called the Meralco Millenium Foundation, Inc., the OMF is the corporate foundation and social development arm of the Manila Electric Company (Meralco), the largest electric utility firm in the Philippines.
According to Tarayao, the OMF resulted from the desire to serve the country using what the business was good at—handling electricity. He and his team at the OMF wanted to make a difference and fill in an important necessity.
Electricity undeniably plays a significant role in achieving the full experience of learning, especially in a country like the Philippines where millions of households are still without power. This was the primary reason why Meralco, through OMF, used their resources to provide alternative energy access for public elementary and high schools. This way, students will have equal learning opportunities with those from urban areas.
“It’s unfortunate that some areas are too far away from the local distribution utility, so we brought social service deliveries to places where people need it the most. To do that, we are happy and fortunate that solar power technology is available because that’s our business,” Tarayao said.
“So, what the foundation did was provide solar power systems to off-grid schools. The Meralco employees, through the Meralco Fund Charity, made a counterpart for the multimedia equipment. And I think that’s the basic template to make electrification in far-flung public schools to become successful,” he added.
OMF’s mission is not just to bring light to areas doomed in darkness. They also aim to increase the students’ learning contingency so that no student, regardless of social status, will be left behind.
Currently, the foundation is a donee institution accredited by the Philippine Council for NGO Certification, a registered social welfare and development agency under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and a member of the Philippine Business for Social Progress, Philippine Business for the Environment and the League of Corporate Foundations.
Bolts with the community
A year after its creation, OMF piloted the electrification of six off-grid public schools in the remote islands of Isla Verde off the coast of Batangas City by installing each with 1-kilowatt peak photovoltaic (solar) power systems. For years, students in these schools endured the absence of electricity that made learning difficult for them.
Since then, the foundation expanded its School Electrification Program to include those outside of the Meralco franchise area.
Eight years later, a total of 225 off-grid schools all over the country have been energized. It was a tough feat. But by doing so, Meralco addressed a good part of the double dilemma of the absence of electricity in many places across the country and its corollary issue of poor or inadequate education.
Now, the 75,000 students benefit from the project were each given the opportunity to advance in society that puts a premium on education.
“I don’t want to sound mushy, but it still gives me goosebumps whenever I visit these schools or communities. Remember, these are communities that cannot be serviced by the grid, meaning a whole barangay has no source of power.”
“The schools are transformed into ‘community centers’ holding barangay meetings and other events because they are the only place with electricity. Our electrification initiative encouraged high attendance from the students and even teachers. So, we know we are creating positive impact,” Tarayao said.
From what it looks like, the OMF is just getting started as they show no hint of stopping. Tarayao confirmed his team is looking at energizing 18 more schools with at least 150 enrollees this year.
However, as part of the plan to make changes last, the OMF, in return, requires schools and the local communities under the program to work closely with the Foundation to keep the solar panels in good condition.
“We give them refresher courses in troubleshooting and maintenance through the Meralco Power Academy. What we do is we bring the trainers there and then we put together, for example, all Western Visayas schools and then they do handson, including managerial training. That’s a two-day training,” Rainer R. Manguait, OMF Program Officer, explained.
Aside from School Electrification Program, the OMF has also worked with the Department of Education (DepEd) to promote energy safety, efficiency and sustainable use through energy education.
In partnership with the Cebu-based non-profit organization, Coalition for Better Education (CBE), the OMF developed localized learning resources on energy and related topics with the help of teachers selected from various public schools nationwide. These were collected
into a flashcard kit called Energy Ed kit which was mass-produced and distributed to close to hundreds of public schools nationwide.
Each kit contains 200 flashcards aligned with DepEd’s K to 12 curriculum and may be used in several subjects, especially Science. These are now being used by over half a million Grades 4 to 10 students all over the country.
To make the materials more accessible to both public and private schools, the OMF also launched its online counterpart, www.energyed.ph, where teachers may register and download individual flashcards or the entire package for free.
Currently, the foundation commissioned the University of the Philippines to conduct a third-party impact assessment on the effect of their electrification program and track its progress.
Power transformer
“We cannot let the technology to stay only with those who can afford it. These small communities can afford it but maybe only later. How much are they losing already by not being able to maximize the benefits of technology? To everyone who already has the capacity, whether you are an individual, organization, a barkada or a big business, I think it is our responsibility to open those opportunities for those deprived students,” Tarayao said.
The OMF admitted that its program is not a one-size-fits-all solution to the country’s problem in electricity and education. We may still be far from living in a place where no one is left behind but thankfully, the OMF took the initiative to spark transformative changes—something our crumbling nation needs to get out of its bleak state.
Moving forward, the foundation hopes to spur economic change in the country while challenging local leaders to reinforce better self-generating projects like the solar panel system.
Powering up one off-grid school is all it took the foundation to make a giant leap for the underprivileged Filipino students. What started as a simple corporate social responsibility project, the OMF is now making permanent changes in the country - electrifying remote areas in the country, one school
at a time.
“We give them refresher courses in troubleshooting and maintenance through the Meralco Power Academy.”