As we shared with everyone last year, we were co-applicants along with Sequa, a German NGO with projects all around the world with experience in handling international grants as the lead applicant, and Process – Bohol, Inc., a local NGO with experience in livelihood that will allow us to add a new dimension to Project Liadlaw, expanding the benefits of renewable energy outside of education. Together, we were able to achieve receiving a Euro 2.2 million grant funded by the European Union in the Philippines that will allow us to expand Project Liadlaw (called Project RELY – Renewable Energy for Livelihood and Youth – for the duration of this partnership) to 16 off-grid communities and 5 Senior High Schools in Cebu, Bohol and Palawan.
In the last 2 weeks alone, we traveled to Davao to meet with the EU and other grant recipients. Out of 72 applicants, only 7 projects were selected, 5 of which are in Mindanao, leaving us as one of only two projects outside of Mindanao.
A few days later, all three partners had our 2-day workshop to plan the next 3 years and how we will approach uplifting the communities of 3 provinces. Finally, we were able to meet the EU and other stakeholders of the project – especially government stakeholders such as the Department of Education, TESDA and the Department of Trade and Industry – about how we can all work together on this project.
We will have so much more to share in the coming weeks and we hope you will be here to journey with us. We would especially like to thank the European Union in the Philippines for having the faith in our project.