2 Aeta Lolas to Undergo Solar Power Training in India

MANILA – Two Filipina women are currently on a mission to learn solar power engineering in a school in India for indigenous people.

Sharon Flores and Evelyn Clemente are both Aeta grandmothers from Subic, Zambales, CBCP News reported.

The two are on a 6-month training to become solar power engineers at the Barefoot College in Rajasthan, according to Sr. Eva Fidela Maano of the Foundation of Our Lady of Peace Mission, Inc. (FOLPMI).

FOLPMI is supervising the Aeta Resettlement and Rehabilitation in Sitio Gala, Barangay Aningway Sacatihan in Subic, the tribal community where Flores and Clemente belong.

They two women are studying the assembly, maintenance and repair of solar units together with about 50 other women from ‘poor and powerless’ communities across the globe.

Project coordinator Japhet Miano Kariuki, senior consultant of OLLI Consulting Group, Inc, said all participants have no formal education since birth. But the education they will obtain at the school will make them specialists in solar power engineering.

Flores and Clemente will graduate in March and will be capable of helping their tribal community with electricity with the sun as the source.

When the solar equipment is installed, the tribe will only need to replace their solar cell battery every five years or so.

Kariuki said the program is tapping companies to raise P2.6 million needed to acquire solar equipment good for 100 houses in the Aeta community.

Currently, the resettlement area where the Aetas, who used to live at the foot of Mt. Pinatubo, were relocated after the volcano’s eruption in 1991 has over 130 families.

(Source: ABS CBN News)