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Green Empowerment Service Learning

Students from PSU make an impact in Malaysian Borneo, Nicaragua

PSU students work with GE and TONIBUNG in Spring 2016 on a microhydro project in a small village in Northern Malaysian Borneo. The village of Kalangaan was previously without electricity, using generators for only special occasions.

You may have heard about Green Empowerment, an organization that serves people in what we would consider remote areas of developing nations, providing access to modern quality of life technology, such as electricity, sanitation, access to clean water, and much more. Green Empowerment is headquartered in Portland, OR and conducts operations all over the world. 
Students are encouraged to join the organization's service learning projects, working field trips where students join in with members of the organization to work side by side with villagers, in order to bring modern tech to places that could seriously benefit from their implementation, things we in the USA perhaps take for granted.
PSU students have been going with GE to these less-developed parts of the world for years now, and continue to do so to this day. Notable destinations include Nicaragua and Malaysian Borneo.
In Borneo, last year around this time, PSU Honors college students travelled to several towns and villages in North Borneo's Ulu Paper region to lend a hand in several projects, including a microhydro project to bring electricity to the remote village for the first time. This project serves as both a way to serve and improve the lives of the local populations, while giving the students an invaluable experience of applying modern techniques to solve problems in inventive and sustainable ways. These problems have a wide application as well, as an estimated 1.2 billion people worldwide do not have access to electricity. 783 million people do not have access to clean water, and another 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. Green Empowerment has their work cut out for them, with plenty of room to innovate and plenty of people to help and communities to transform!
The students that participate today could very well be leaders in their field some day, spurred by such experiences. This is what Green Empowerment is all about, paving the way for a future of sustainable living, and sharing of technology to raising the standard of living for everyone - especially those it can help the most.

Would you like to know more?


The Weight of Water Trailer from N. S. Wynn on Vimeo.







links used:
https://www.greenempowerment.org/
https://www.greenempowerment.org/donate/
https://www.greenempowerment.org/service-learning/
https://vikingsabroad.pdx.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ViewProgram&Program_ID=10425
https://www.greenempowerment.org/all-project-list/nicaragua/
https://www.greenempowerment.org/all-project-list/malaysia/
https://www.greenempowerment.org/2016/05/26/psu-students-lend-a-hand-in-borneo/
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/resources/energydevelopment/energyaccessdatabase/
http://www.unwater.org/water-cooperation-2013/water-cooperation/facts-and-figures/en/
https://www.greenempowerment.org/electricity/
https://energy.gov/energysaver/microhydropower-systems
https://www.greenempowerment.org/donate/
https://vimeo.com/174327290
https://www.greenempowerment.org/borneo/
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/06/psu_students_fuel_green_empowe.html
http://psuvanguard.com/green-businesses-bring-solar-energy-to-nicaragua/

Thanks for reading!


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