WHERE: SERRANO HALL, DA-Agricultural Training Institute, Elliptical Road corner
Visayas Ave. After Commonwealth, you will see Philcoa, DAR, then
ATI...just before reaching Visayas Ave.
FREE..no frills. You
get the information you need, with no added frills, so we can give you
the talks for FREE :) Can we just ask everyone to BRING FOOD FOR
SHARING :) :)
Please send us an email at spreadorganicagriculture@yahoo.com or log on to FB EVENT https://www.facebook.com/events/193485607454589/ to confirm attendance :)
CITATION for Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc. (AIDFI)
Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies
31 August 2011, Manila, Philippines
Building technology to serve
the poor is a major challenge in the world today. Technology’s benefits
must be brought to people, whatever their status, wherever they are,
and in ways they can own and sustain. This is essential to promoting
development, addressing poverty, and empowering communities.
For the past fifteen years, a
small non-profit organization in the province of Negros Occidental, the
Philippines has been addressing precisely this challenge. The
Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc. (AIDFI) is a social
enterprise that tackles the problem of rural poverty by designing,
fabricating, and promoting environment-friendly technology which is
accessible and income-augmenting, for the poor.
AIDFI was initially born out of the social turmoil that accompanied
the collapse of the sugar industry in Negros during the 1980s. Hundreds
of workers and farmers were displaced and the survival of peasant
families was severely threatened. In the wake of this crisis, a small
group of social activists which included Auke Idzenga, a Dutch marine
engineer, decided to form AIDFI to address the basic needs of the
affected farmers. Agricultural production and technology development
were their initial strategies, but meager funds and the loss of key
members forced the organization to close down. When Idzenga returned to
Negros in 1997, however, AIDFI was revived, this time with a clearer
focus on innovating technology to help poor, rural families.
AIDFI’s first success came when it redesigned an ancient and largely
abandoned technology called the ram pump. The ram pump uses the natural
kinetic energy of flowing water from rivers or springs, to push water
uphill without the use of gas or electricity. As reinvented by AIDFI,
the ram pump can lift water to an upland reservoir, with a volume of
1,500 to 72,000 liters of water per day. Partnering with organizations
and local governments, AIDFI does not only introduce machinery, but a
whole “social package” which includes community consultation, training
of village technicians, transfer of ownership of the water system to the
community, and the organization of local water associations to manage
the water generation and distribution system.
In introducing the ram pump system to upland communities that do not
have easy access to water, AIDFI technicians are able to provide clean,
cheap water for household use, livestock raising, aquaculture, and
small-scale agriculture. Since reinventing the ram pump technology,
AIDFI has fabricated, installed, and transferred 227 ram pumps that now
benefit 184 upland communities in Negros Occidental and other provinces
across the country. AIDFI has also brought the ram pump technology to
help waterless upland communities in other countries; it is is now
carrying out complete ram pump technology transfer in Afghanistan,
Colombia, and Nepal.
AIDFI continues to innovate on technology for the poor. To increase
rural incomes, AIDFI has designed and fabricated an essential oil
distiller that can process lemon grass into organic oil for industrial
users. It transfers this technology to the farmers and provides
packaging and marketing support, and a distribution network that now
reaches other countries. Going even further, AIDFI has established a
“technopark” in their office premises to actually showcase and
demonstrate AIDFI-designed technologies that range from cooking and
agricultural implements to a biogas plant and a windmill which can
generate up to 800 watts of electricity.
In promoting grassroots enterprise, AIDFI has placed the premium on
small-scale, accessible, low-maintenance technology that is customized
for local needs, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and one owned
and managed by the people themselves. Its struggle to exist as a viable
organization has been most trying in both institutional and human terms,
but AIDFI has pioneered a way that has already transformed the lives of
thousands of rural families.
In electing Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc., to
receive the 2011 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes
AIDFI’s collective vision, technological innovations, and partnership
practices to make appropriate technologies improve the lives and
livelihoods of the rural poor in upland Philippine communities and
elsewhere in Asia.
