GLI Philippines Tour 2009, Sept 13th-October 2nd

FlagRP Finally, the Green Life Innovators Philippines Tour 2009 is ready to begin. The tickets have been bought and I am ready to go. The tour will take place between September 13th and October 2nd. I will be meeting up with GLI co-founder and deputy chairman, Espen, who came to the Philippines in June and will stay there for one year. Though he has to leave for work occasionally during this one year period.

A simple panel solar cooker

The goal

The main purpose of the trip is to start the first phase of the project teaching integrated solar cooking, using a panel solar cooker as the main cooking device and a so called rocket stove as the backup solution for rainy days and with a hay basket or heat retention cooker as a possible supplement. Indoor smoke pollution from cooking over an open fire is a big health problem in the Philippines, like in most other developing countries. In a time when people are very concerned about big environmental issues, like everyone’s global carbon footprint, it is easy to forget about the little things that people do to pollute their environment. But we should concentrate on green solution both big and small, and this is a relatively small one, but one which may have a big impact in the quality of life of those switching to solar cooking.

Important not to be too ambitious

Having been to the Philippines several times before both Espen and I know from experience that things tend to work slower, much slower, in that country than we are used to back home. Thus, it is important not to make too ambitious plans as to what one plans to achieve during a period of 3 weeks.

During my visit this time we therefore plan the following:

Teaching a group of locals to make the panel solar cooker
Looking for suitable natural local materials for the rocket stove
Looking for natural materials to replace the cardboard and glue of the panel solar cooker
Visit a permaculture project south of Cebu City

Another thing that often fails to work to western standards in the Philippines is the communication infrastructure. Sometimes we can be without Internet access and/or electricity for a couple of days out in the province. It used to be much worse a couple of years ago, but the situation is still far from good. Green Life Innovators has the possibility to even stream live video from our events, but I seriously doubt it if we get a chance to do that. So the main ways of keeping our readers up to date during the tour will be Twitter and this blog.

The location

The place where we will go is a small island, named Bantayan Island. It’s located in the Cebu province, a little to the north west of the north tip of Cebu Island, for those of you who know a little about the geography of the Philippines. The island is fairly popular with tourists but far from the tourist magnet as places like Boracay. The main sources from which people make a living on the island is fishing and egg production. The island has been named “the egg basket of the Visayas.” The Visayas is the name of the middle region of the Philippines.

Visiting a permaculture project

We have been talking to the people behind the Cebu Permaculture Initiatives about dropping in for a short visit during the stay, to have a look at what they do to implement permaculture in the Philippines. I hope to return to their site for a longer period of training later. Their site is located south of Cebu City. At the time of writing they have responded that it would be cool if we paid them a visit, and we have agreed to agree on the exact date when my trip is getting a bit closer. Here are two of their videos. Enjoy!

Follow our tour on this blog, on Facebook and on Twitter

Green Life Innovators recently signed up for a Twitter account at http://twitter.com/GreenLifeInno. We will start twittering during the Philippines tour and continue to use Twitter afterwards. So please follow us on Twitter if you want to keep yourself up to date with what we do. And please notify your Twitter network and your network on other social media, like Facebook, too.