Sustainability & 3Rs

Second Priority Program of Bituen Organization is Sustainability and 3Rs a forum on what individuals & ordinary folks can do.  Since its launch in December 2013, the following forums and workshops have been conducted throughout the Philippines:
1. December 6, 2013 at University of the Philippines
2. March 21, 2013 at Marilao, Bulacan

3. March 28 2014 at Urdaneta, Pangasinan
4. May 12-13 at Tacloban City

5. October 17, 2014 at Obando, Bulacan

6. November 14, 2014 at the Girl Scout of the Philippines Banaoang Ilocos Sur Campsite

We continue to look and cooperate with partners for these endeavors to achieve a greener, improved Philippines.

Urban Guerrilla Gardening Workshop

In Bituen's continues commitment to improve the condition of Filipinos, it is launching its custom workshop Urban Guerrilla Gardening (Gardening from wastes) under its Sustainable Living & 3Rs program for private groups and companies. The workshop shows that even without open space and less budget, individuals and homes can maintain their own gardens using up to 70% of household wastes.

The many advantages of maintaining even a pot of plant are as follows:

1. Converts carbon dioxide to oxygen
2. Cleans air to help prevent colds, coughs, asthma, and other respiratory illness
3. Reduces work & personal stress
4. Stimulates learning 
5. Reduces heat and humidity
6. Helps reduce household waste by turning bio-waste into fertilizer
7. Improves overall quality of life.

We now accept company, school/class workshops. For scheduling, call (632) 9941372 or email bituen.org@gmail.com

Experience rural living

(To View Slideshow, please click here.)

More than just spending and seeing, feel and experience rural and back-to-basics community life. Travel in rural community  Philippines at the not-quite so-remote barrio of Santo Tomas in northern Luzon. Santo Tomas is the mother barangay of the town of Santo Domingo, in Ilocos Sur, Philippines. Legend has it that the first priest of Santo Domingo have chosen the eastern barrio for its snaking river and friendly locals. Throughout the years, the Spanish bar/tiled remnants of the priest's chapel have been removed, and that the farmer tilling the land have since unearthed antique plates and jars within the area.

However, the place now teems with variety of local fruits (you can actually ask for FREE from neighbors!), and to sample a common view:

Visitors / travelers from Asia (China, Japan, Indonesia), Europe (France, Russia, Croatia, Poland) have found the people friendly, so much like many rural folks in the country as biker-photographer/blogger Amaya Williams documented here.

One can experience foraging, homestead living, natural building in their accommodation,   practice organic gardening, permaculture, and many more.

Call us at 63-2-9941372 or email us now to book.

Oh, and by the way, bonus sites within a few minutes ride from the barrio / site is the hundred-years-old Spanish town  of Vigan, and a nearby beach in South China Sea.

Community Garden (Tacloban City)

In November 2013, typhoon Haiyan considered as the strongest typhoon ever recorded, devastated southern Philippines particularly the province of Leyte. It was acknowledged to have cost the lives of some 8,000 people, although ground workers claim the death toll to be around 20-25,000.
The tragedy multiplied several times when the national government turned its back on the area as it was left to recover on its own despite the downpour of foreign aid.
Six months after the calamity, Bituen volunteers visited the area to establish that aside from temporary bunkhouses, Red Cross and the distribution of relief goods by DSWD are the only signs of national government presence in the province.

 Leyte 6 months after typhoon Haiyan.

 Mass grave in Palo Leyte where hundreds of cadavers were piled up on top of another.

Through the initial help of FaceBook group pages Education is our Tool, Controlled Salpukan Zone, Gising na Pilipinas, and Gising na Pinoy, Bituen volunteers visited Leyte to distribute books from Read Philippines and Migrante British Columbia, bags and raincoats from the said FB groups. A series of forums and workshops on Sustainability integrating it to waste management at grassroots level were also conducted. Instead of the Container Gardening part of the workshop, a Community Garden was instead re-established during the visit to help the victims get up off their feet again. #52 Magallanes, a community of informal settlers near the coast was chosen for this project. This community garden will be under the Sustainability 101 program of Bituen.

Bituen priority programs are: Reading Caravan (books distribution to marginalized children), Sustainability 101 (forum & workshop integrating 3Rs with sustainable lifestyle), and Talent workshop for marginalized youths. Everybody is encouraged to contribute to this program through the Paypal donation button.

For Philippine donors, cash donation may be submitted through:
1. Bank of Commerce, Savings Account: BITUEN - 035-20-004471-0 or 
2. Banco de Oro (Payments- Smart Money) CARD number: 5299-6737-0016-6104

In-kind donations of:
* seedlings (vegetable, fruit trees, ornamental plants)
* gardening tools
* kubo materials (labig, bamboo, wood post, nails, cement, etc)
* carpentry tools (hammer, saw, planer, tape measure, utility knife, lay out square, chisel, clamp, power drill, screw drivers, trowels, etc)
may also be sent through:

Bituen Community Garden (Tacloban)

2109-B Col. Santos St., South Cembo, 

Makati City 1214 Philippnes

International Donors, please click here for Paypal donations.