MANILA, Philippines - After decades of providing quality affordable roofs for Filipino homes, Puyat Steel Corporation, the country’s pioneer world-class galvanizing company, is now part of the movement to provide indigent families with a solar light source at no cost.
Called Isang Litrong Liwanag (A Liter of Light), the campaign spearheaded by My Shelter Foundation, a non-profit and non-government organization, targets to bring the eco-friendly solar bottle bulb to low-income communities nationwide.
This light changes people’s lives by providing 55 watts of free lighting, saving a poor household an average of P300 monthly for the next five years. Designed and developed by students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the improvised light bulb is made from a recycled bottle, some household chemicals and a piece of corrugated sheet.
Said Puyat Steel’s communication manager Missy Castro, “When Illac Diaz approached us to join the project, we decided to give 100 GI sheets for free upon learning how the project will make lives better for poor households.”
Puyat Steel provided the APO Galfan GI corrugated sheets used for the improvised solar light bulbs to more than 200 families in the Payatas Community. The company’s employees also volunteered to assemble the solar light bulbs for this community.
“We find the Isang Litrong Liwanag project really commendable and we hope to join the project in lighting up more communities in the future,” said Casto.
Established in 2005 by its founder and executive director Illac Diaz, My Shelter Foundation is a non-profit, non-government organization with a thrust of finding uncommon solutions to common problems.
Puyat Steel has established the first-ever-state-of-the-art continuous galvanizing line that allows the company to offer superior quality galvanized sheet and voils using the modern technology of a non-oxidizing furnace.