LOS BAÑOS, Laguna—In its bid to co-create safe, empowered, and sustainable communities, AboitizPower subsidiary Therma Luzon, Inc. (TLI) has signed an agreement with the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) to implement a community baseline program in its host communities in Pagbilao, Quezon province.
The research program will be conducted by UPLB-Barangay Integrated Development Approach for Nutrition Improvement (BIDANI) and UPLB Foundations, Inc. (UPLBFI) in Barangays Ilayang Polo and Ibabang Polo.
“This baseline assessment will allow us to implement more sustainable community programs based on the actual needs of our host communities,” said Therma South, Inc. Reputation and Stakeholder Management Supervisor JK Huyatid.
“We want to grow together with our host communities and help them to eventually sustain their own growth. This partnership with UPLBFI is a proactive, community-driven approach in social development. We will be capacitating the barangay local government unit (LGU) in collecting, encoding, and analyzing community data, with the goal of establishing a barangay management information system that can be input to both their government programs and TLI’s CSR programs,” Huyatid added.
UPLB-BIDANI Project Leader Dr. Marites G. Yee said the team will use systematic and community-based approach research to determine the needs of the community members and improve their nutrition status.
“In attaining nutrition improvement, we would need to take into consideration various factors, such as agriculture and food security, health, education, family services, livelihood, gender and development, infrastructure, sports and youth development, peace and order, environmental management, and disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM),” Yee added.
For his part, UPLBFI Executive Director Dr. Enrico P. Supangco said experts from the university will be joining the project team.
“For us, it is a very good opportunity because one of our objectives is to have partners outside of the university, with private institutions like yours, so that we can also be able to provide your industry with the expertise coming from UPLB,” he said. “I am very happy for this project, I know that the people working here are experts in their own field,” Supangco said.
Therma Luzon, Inc. (TLI) is AboitizPower’s 700 MW coal-fired power plant in Pagbilao, Quezon Province. TeaM Energy Corporation (TeaM Energy) operates the facility under a Build-Operate-Transfer scheme.
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