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Silver Sponsor: The Villar Foundation

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Administrator

Many thanks to The Villar Foundation for signing up as a silver sponsor for iBlog8.

More info about the organization:

The Villar Foundation

The Villar Foundation

Since its inception, Villar Foundation has initiated, implemented, and supported various projects aimed at improving the quality of life of the people in the communities where we live and maintain a business presence.

One of Villar Foundation’s earliest programs was ‘Pagtatanim Para Sa Kinabukasan‘, a tree-planting program, to create urban forests in open spaces of subdivisions, residential communities, and schools.

Over the years, its advocacies and beneficiaries have expanded and diversified in order to reach more people and sectors of the society. These include the poor and underprivileged; overseas Filipino workers and their families; the youth; women; the church; the environment among others.

The Las Pinas-Zapote River Rehabilitation Program, launched in 2002, is its flagship program or advocacy. The program has won numerous awards and citations. It was selected by the Dubai International Award and United Nations Human Settlements Programme for Best Practice in 2006 for its outstanding contribution towards improving the living environment. In March 2009, the program won the Oikos Global Case Writing Competition sponsored by OIKOS FOUNDATION Switzerland for the sustainable Livelihood Program developed out of river wastes. In November 2009, the program won the Green Apple Award for Environmental Best Practice in London, UK.

The most recent recognition for the river rehabilitation program is the United Nations Best Water Management Practices Award in Celebration of the Water for Life Decade held in Zaragosa, Spain in March 2011.

The Las Pinas-Zapote River experience showed that for environmental projects to be sustainable, they should have a livelihood component. The Green Social Enterprises that grew organically out of the project are the following:

The Water Hyacinth Weaving Enterprise

The water hyacinths are bright green inedible aquatic plants that ran like carpet in the river. It succeeded in clogging our rivers and made them impassable to any form of water transport industry including our river-cleaning equipment. Through proper technology, we made the water hyacinths as raw materials to our weaving enterprise. We made baskets and other items from the stalks, which inspired the poor people to remove them from the river because they have become the source of their livelihood.

The Coconut Coir and Peat Enterprise

The popularity of the coconut fruits as food in our city account for the tens of thousands of coconut husks that pile up daily in the markets, sidewalks, and in our rivers. Using decorticating machine invented by Dr. Justino Arboleda, an agricultural engineer and dean of one of our universities, we extracted the fiber and peat from the coconut husk. The fibers are used to produce coco coir, a superior and most cost-effective alternative to concrete rip rapping to prevent soil erosion. The coco peat are mixed with kitchen wastes to produce organic fertilizer.

The Handloom Blanket Weaving Enterprise

The coco coir enterprise finances our handloom blanket weaving. The blankets are given away to victims of natural calamities and fire.

The Composting of Kitchen and Garden Wastes

As of today, we produce 60 tons of organic fertilizer per month out of our kitchen and garden wastes. We hope to produce twice as much in the future.

The Pulverizing of Plastic
A machine pulverizes plastic, which we use in turn, as raw materials for manufacturing hollow blocks and pavers.

The Lantern-Making Enterprising

Lantern-making is a three-generation livelihood of Las Pineros, which uses the bamboos planted along the riverbanks as raw materials which we plant under bamboo stewardship program.

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