ADVOCACY/CAMPAIGN: A 1,000 Points of Light: The Lighting Up of Payatas!

And God said, 'Let there be light."

Can you withstand a day of no electricity? I just can't seem to imagine living in a world of darkness. But then majority of us leave our lights on, not really oblivious of our surrounding. Do you know how fortunate we are to be enjoying this luxury? There's a massive population out there who are unfortunate to even have their own house lighted. Many of us are aware of the difficult situations that our co-Filipinos experience in the Payatas community. The Payatas community surrounds the mountainous garbage dump outside Manila, and I believe most Filipinos are aware of this place.

July 01-03 2011 marked the Payatas Solar Bottle Campaign. It's spearheaded to bring ‘sustainable’ and ‘green’ lighting technology to 1,000 homes in the Payatas community. This is from the brilliant minds of the MyShelter Foundation. MSF is a non-profit, non-government organization, established in 2005 by its founder and executive director Illac Diaz with a trust of finding uncommon solutions to common problems. 

Volunteers engage in different tasks, from the preparations (involving drilling of holes and organization of materials), to the actual assembly and installation of the bottles in the homes. Apart from displaying the power of the technology, the project aims to bring together the efforts of the community, volunteer delegations from different areas, as well as media and corporate partners namely: Meralco, IPM group, Bosch Foundation, Schneider Electric, Puyat Steel, Themeworks and Mannasoft, in order to show that it is possible for anyone, even with just the simplest of materials, to change the world.

The main event was held last July 02, and the media were there too to fully witness how these families are living in the real world. The volunteers, press and corporate media partners each exerted their own effort to make the event a success. I missed this event though as I was still very sick then. I was hoping I could also help to collect and transform a PET bottle into a Solar Bottle Bulb! The feeling of helping these people would just be too overwhelming.

Solar light bulb made from PET bottle.

Sounds like a very impossible and difficult project isn't it? But with determination and enough perseverance, the project is an arm's reach. Unite Filipinos, that's what we are good at! Let's give them a brighter hope shall we?

Thumbs up for another groundbreaking campaign that hopes to provide a sustainable source of light energy to thousands of households among disprivileged areas in the Philippines.

Here is a step-by-step procedure how you can prepare and make a solar bulb out of a pet bottle:

So don't just throw away those soda bottles. 

See how useful they are?