Twenty-eight of Negros Island’s college student government officers completed Friday the BINHI Youth Camp in Valencia, Negros Oriental with a firm commitment to spreading positive energy as our nation’s future leaders.
Now on its 3rd year, the BYC is the Energy Development Corp.’s leadership camp, which aimed to instill pride among the participants for this gift of geothermal energy in Negros Island.
“Geothermal energy is the holy grail among renewable energy technologies since it is the only form of RE that can provide base load power all year round, whatever the season is,” said Norreen Bautista, EDC’s Community Partnerships, External Relations, & Watershed Management Group head, in a media release Friday. “We should be proud and thankful for its abundance here in Negros island.”
This year, the delegates come from: Colegio de Sta Catalina de Alejandria, Negros Oriental State University, Saint Paul University Dumaguete; Foundation University, Systems Technology Institute-Dumaguete, Asian College of Science & Technology, and Silliman University from Negros Oriental; University of St. La Salle, Carlos Hilado Memorial State College-Alijis, Bago City College, La Consolacion College-Bacolod, Visayan Maritime Academy, Colegio San Agustin-Bacolod, John Lacson Colleges Foundation, and West Negros University-STI from Negros Occidental.
Throughout the camp, the participants’ inquisitive minds stirred numerous complex questions. They were very much interested in learning how geothermal energy works and how planting trees helps in sustaining this form of clean, renewable energy.
Talk 1 on the role of the youth in social media taught them that they have a voice and they should use it to spread correct information on various topics that they care about through their social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
On day 2, the campers applied what they learned about EDC’s Binhi greening legacy as they planted Molave, Narra, Nato, White Lauan, and Yakal seedlings, which are all a part of EDC’s 96 flagship native tree species under its BinhiTree for the Future.
EDC’s disaster and crisis team head, Dr. Ted Esguerra of the Mt. Everest Team, also gave the campers tips on how to prevent disasters and accidents, and more so, how to deal with them in case they happen.
The camp culminates culminated Friday with an experiential learning activity called “Amazing Binhi Race,” where participants apply everything they learned in the BYC and the participants’ graduation ceremonies.
The BYC was run by EDC employee-volunteers and its BINHI Youth Champions from the 2014 and 2015 batches who continue to support the company in all its BINHI and its corporate social responsibility projects.
EDC is the world’s largest vertically integrated geothermal company and the only purely renewable energy firm in the country. It has been empowering communities and preserving the forests in areas where it operates for almost 40 years. (PNA)
