Donating to Green Empowerment through NiceBuy

Green Empowerment receives donations for Micro-Hydro projects in Nicaragua if you shop through www.nicebuy.org

You do not have to buy anything on nicebuy,  just use the site as a portal and Green Empowerment receives a portion of the funds of your purchase.

Retailers include: Best Buy, Amazon, itunes and more!

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Outland Reforestation Raises Funds for Micro-Hydro Projects in Nicaragua

Below is an entry provided by Jake Clemens, a past intern with Green Empowerment and AsoFenix about a fundraiser that was held this summer by Outland Reforestation. Thank you for all of your hard work Outland Reforestation!

If you had ventured into the Northern Alberta wilderness this past summer, it’s possible you could of encountered a grizzly bear, a moose, a beaver or an elk (most certainly a mosquito) but its also possible you could have stumbled upon a tree planter. Tree planting is an occupation that requires a rare breed of human being; one that is willing to push their body to the limits everyday, while living and working in the forest.

Looking Over the Logged Land

One at a time, every tree sapling is carefully planted through rough and uneven terrain, in order to rejuvenate a resource utilized by the logging industry. Sections of clear-cut forest is a treeplanter’s office, and they show up to work everyday, with each person planting between 2500 and 5000 saplings in a work-day.

Treeplanter

This past summer, a camp of treeplanters from Outland Reforestation teamed up with Green Empowerment to help raise money for micro-hydro projects taking place in rural areas of Nicaragua. These projects will provide renewable electricity to five impoverished communities in Nicaragua and empower these communities to improve their economic, educational, and health conditions.

Some goals of the project include: Five schools and five health centers to have electrical service installed, installation of irrigation pumps for improved nutrition through the growing of vegetables, diversify economies through the introduction of electricity, electrical grids reaching 300 homes, building the capacity of local organizations and communities by giving them tools to ensure long-term technical and financial independence and sustainability

Thousands of kilometers remain between the camp of young treeplanters and the rural villages selected for this project, but with this fundraiser, a spruce sapling is gently placed in a hole in northern Alberta, as a DC lightbulb flickers on for the first time in a house in Nicaragua, signifying a progression towards a better standard of life.

The planters from Outland Reforestation would like to extend an enormous thank you to Green Empowerment for giving them a chance to be involved with this project, and applaud the strides that Green Empowerment has achieved towards alleviating poverty in the developing world.

The Outland Reforestation Group

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And the Winner Is . . .

How Green Empowerment and Thai Partner, Border Green Energy Team, Rocked the 2009 Energy Globe Awards

Salinee Tavaranan accepts Energy Globe Award Grand Prize

Green Empowerment’s “Solar Mobile Clinic and Hospital” project in Burma was selected as the winner of the international Energy Globe Award in the “Fire” category on Tuesday. The project, implemented by Thai partner Border Green Energy Team (BGET), was also voted overall Grand Prize Winner by the audience at a televised gala during a meeting of the European Union environment ministers in Prague.

The award was accepted by BGET Director Salinee Tavaranan. BGET will receive 10,000 euros (Approx. $13,000) in prize money. Green Empowerment’s Southeast Asia Program Manager Michel Maupoux was also in attendance. Nominations were chosen from a pool of 766 projects in 110 countries.

The project enabled the procurement of solar power systems and provides training for staff in 35 remote jungle clinics and two larger hospitals, serving 175,000 people, including many internally displaced ethnic minorities. The clinics are scattered over 600 miles of eastern Burma, a noted conflict zone. Solar systems must be frequently disassembled and moved on short notice, and equipment must be carried over the border from Thailand in backpacks. Green Empowerment’s role is technical design and training.

“Renewable energy is often the most inexpensive way to provide electricity to poor people in remote areas and often the only way to do so within a conflict zone. ” said Gordy Molitor, Executive Director, Green Empowerment. “This award to BGET is a testament to the inventiveness and tenacity of the Burmese people in the face of adversity.”

Green Empowerment was also singled out as one of the top three organizations in the world for its “Solar Water Pumping and Community Empowerment” projects in Nicaragua.  Green Empowerment worked with Nicaraguan partner Asofenix to construct three solar water pumps in rural Nicaragua between 2004 and 2007, bringing water to the homes of 960 people who previously had to haul buckets long distances.  One more system was installed in 2008 and more are planned. These projects dramatically improve health and well being with environmentally sound alternative energy.

The Energy Globe Award distinguishes projects that sustainably use our resources such as water, earth, energy and air or use renewable energy forms. Awards are given nationally and internationally in the categories Earth, Fire, Water, Air and Youth. The Awards were established in 1999.

How You Can Help Continue the Burma Project and Others

Your donations help bring solar power to health clinics along the Thai/Burmese border and needed water to rural villages in Nicaragua, as well as a host of other vital projects.  You can help continue this globally-acclaimed work.

Nicaragua

Green Empowerment and Nicaraguan partner, AsoFenix, are currently working to bring solar water pumping systems to the villages of El Jocote and Corozo, which will bring water to 700 people for years to come. Our goals for El Jocote and Corozo:

• Give each person at least 10 gallons of clean water each day
• Reduce the time villagers spend hauling water
• Improve health conditions and overall quality of life
• Restore the watershed for long-term safeguarding of the water supply
• Improve family health and nutrition by growing vegetables

Each solar water pumping system, including design, community development, equipment, and installation, costs approximately $60,000.  Your donation can catalyze funding from local governments and foundations.

Thailand/Burma

Along the Thai/Burmese border, BGET and Green Empowerment are laying the groundwork for solar power to one medical clinic and a school dormitory.  We are ready to implement these two projects in October 2009 and want only funding.

• The clinic currently serves about 13 villages on both sides of Thai/Burma border. A solar electric system will power a vaccine refrigerator, microscope lights, operation lights, and other medical equipment.

• The dormitory is home to around 30 Karen children of all ages whose families are unable to support their education at home.  These children stay at the dorm where they are housed, fed and supported in many other ways.  All of the children attend the local Thai school.  The dorm has been going since 1998. The solar system will power a computer, satellite internet, and lights.

Both of these projects together would benefit several thousand people.  A half dozen full time medics work at any given time at the clinic.  About thirty students reside at the dorm.

Help us celebrate this success brought via the Energy Globe Awards by building on it
to bring light and water to entire communities who now do without.  Thank you for your support.

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You Can Reserve Your Seat for Andina Today (February 10, 2009)

You may have seen on our website that it is time for the 4th Annual Andina Benefit Dinner for Green Empowerment.  This year, we are honored to enjoy Andina’s sublime hospitality in their new special event space upstairs from the main restaurant.  You will not only enjoy five courses with matching wines when you attend the Andina Benefit.  You will be helping the communities whose rich history and culture have infused the food you will eat.

Please take a moment to let us know that you’re coming. Please note – Feb 9th is SOLD OUT and only a handful of seats remain for Feb. 10th so make sure to reserve your seat ASAP!  You can buy tickets online now or reserve seats for payment by check. Each seat is $150, and over half of the ticket price supports Green Empowerment’s work in Peru.

For more information about this extraordinary evening that supports Green Empowerment’s work in Peru, please click here.  Also, please stay tuned for details regarding this year’s silent auction, which you would certainly not want to miss.

Thank you very much for your support of Green Empowerment, and we’ll hope to see you soon!

Purchase Tickets (Credit Card)

Reserve Your Seat (Check or Later Payment)

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Sneak Peek of the 2008 Give!Guide

Give!Guide 2008

Coming soon to an internet or newsstand near you, it’s the Willamette Week Give!Guide 2008.  And guess who is in it for the first time among 55 select organizations?  I’ll give a hint:  G–en  E-power—t.

What does that mean?

It means you can donate online to Green Empowerment via the Give!Guide website from Wednesday, November 12 through December 31st.

Why donate through the Give!Guide?

In a word: schwag.

In recognition of your donation, the Willamette Week will send you a little something special for your gift.  What special something, you might well ask?  How about a couple of TriMet bus tickets, a coupon for a loaf of Dave’s Killer Bread, a coffee drink at Peet’s, two scoops from Staccato Gelato, a Stash tea bag, and a coupon good for a discount at Trebol restaurant?  That’s for a $25 donation to Green Empowerment through the Give!Guide!  Gifts get more decadent and delicious from there (if you can imagine that) for $100, $400, or over $1,000.

But that’s not all!  Nossa Familia Coffee will match the first $2,500 you donate to Green Empowerment through the Give!Guide  For four generations and over 100 harvests, Nossa Familia coffee has been developed, from the planting to the roasting, by the caring hands of the Carvalho Dias family in Brazil.

Stay tuned for the Give!Guide online.  We know it’s hard to wait.  We’re on pins and needles in anticipation ourselves.  And thank you.  Thank you for your support, through times thick and thin.

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