Wednesday, April 06, 2011

SRE Partners with St. Paul University Philippines in Clean Cookstoves Project



To jump-start its Clean Cookstove project, SRE has teamed up with St. Paul University Philippines (SPUP), http://www.spup.edu.ph/, the "mother" university of the St. Paul university system, based in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan Province. Fortuitously, this region in northern Philippines has abundant but abandoned rice hulls, corn cobs, and peanut shells. SPUP President, Sister Remedios Junio, SPC, is a well-known environmentalist who is credited with transforming the SPUP 18-acre campus into a veritable "botanical garden where everything is organic and recycled." SPUP's Eco-Center, Community Development Center (CDC), and College of Nursing are actively engaged in the project: The Eco-Center in overseeing stove fabrication and quality control at SPUP's on-campus shop, CDC through its numerous "adopted communities," and the the nursing students in gathering health data related to indoor pollution.


Through a donation from a Philippine foundation, SPUP has begun fabrication of 100 units, to be distributed and sold (on an installment basis) to 100 households in one of its adopted communities. (Note: Residents in this village are subjected to severe flooding during the rainy season, making the portability of the MTS a much-needed remedy.) Proceeds will be plowed back to fabricating additional units especially as demand is already running into more than 1,000 units. Additional funding is being sought to meet this demand, especially as the price of cooking gas continues to rise. (Orders for multiple units are also made by businesses such as restaurants, bakeries, and food-processing.)


The accompanying photos show mountains of rice hulls and corn cobs being burned just outside Tuguegarao with the attendant smoke and pollution - a very common sight throughout the country.


SRE and SPUP are proud to be partners in helping to promote a cooking mechanism that is (1) clean-burning; (2) fuelled by abandoned biomass instead of wood-sourced fuel; (3) portable, and, above all, is (4) affordable. As our project motto goes, A HAPPY, HEALTHY YOU, AND MOTHER EARTH!


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