Archive for November, 2009
energia para todos
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
Despite an ever growing GDP, Costa Rica is slipping back down the Human Development Index with the disparity between the rich and poor becoming more apparent every day. It is eliminating this disparity that drives ACEM (Asociación para la Ciencia y la Educación Moral), a group dedicated to the education of indigenous children. Children who may not have access to the traditional Costa Rican education system.
ACEM´s ´Preparation for Social Action´ is a two year program targeting young leaders designed to strengthen their knowledge in areas such as science, math, language, technology and service to community. Recognizing that dedicating time for learning in these communities is not always easy as it may have been for you and I, the curriculum is broken into two week modules spread out over the two year period. The idea being that once these young leaders have completed the program, they will become ´multipliers of knowledge´and tutor other groups of children in their community through the program.
Wanting to ensure their students were equipped with the necessary tools for learning, ACEM contacted Light Up the World to provide them with solar lighting systems allowing the students to study after nightfall. After a successful pilot project, ACEM decided to take things a step further and extend the benefits of lighting not just to the students and their families, but to all the people who live in the Talamanca region. Light Up the World, The Y Services Club, and e4e teamed up to support ACEM deliver on their objective. Using a microfinance model for repayment, 250 solar lighting systems will be installed in seven rural Talamancan communities, replacing candles as the primary source for lighting their homes after dark. Installing these systems will be many of the same young leaders currently enrolled in the Preparation for Social Action program.
Alongside these ten leaders, we were given the opportunity to participate in a two day hands on training session being taught by Brian Minielly, a dedicated volunteer from the Owen Sound Y Service Club. Patiently Brian taught us about capturing, storing and converting the sun´s energy. Baring in mind that the majority of these young men live in homes without electricity, located miles away from the closest electrical grid, they quickly grasped with ease concepts of current, polarity, resistance, and even ohm´s law. First thing this morning, when asked to assemble the components of a system, each group was finished and outside measuring the power potential of their systems in less than an hour. Over the coming weeks, Brian will visit each of the communities and provide further in the field training, mentoring individuals as they install the systems in people´s homes.
I can only imagine the reach ACEM´s education program can have once the hours available for study are extended well into the night, and with these young men and women serving as ambassadors, they are one step closer to helping light up Costa Rica.
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