Emerlyn, ATECO beneficiaries in Philippines
We are safer thanks to our lamps!
Emerlyn Sevilla runs a small business. Find out how ATE Co, Entrepreneurs du Monde’s energy access program in the Philippines, supported her during the Covid-19 pandemic!
My name is Emerlyn Sevilla, I am 37 and I am the mother of two children. I was born in a family of 9 children who didn’t have a lot of money. I went to school and I started working when I was 15. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I lost my job so I decided to boost the small clothing and food store I was partially running. I have a great business sense and I am always looking for ideas to increase my family’s income. That’s why I turned my simple business into a small restaurant!
It’s a family business: my mother-in-law helps me a lot with the cooking. Sometimes we also employ someone to help me with the dishes or go to the market to get ingredients.
The services of ATE Co* have allowed me to change our lighting: before we were using very expensive and inefficient car batteries. With ATE Co’s solar kits, we have benefited from better quality lighting at a lower price. It is now less dark, we are safer and we can work later in the evening and at night. With the help of ATE Co, we hope to soon be able to acquire a solar compatible freezer to better preserve our products and not have any more losses.
With the benefits we make, we continue to improve our restaurant and thus further increase our income!
Today, I can send my children to school and have them help me only when they are on vacation. We hope to have Wi-Fi soon so that our children can take their classes online, because here in the Philippines, the schools are still closed.
*ATE Co : a social enterprise launched and supported by Entrepreneurs du Monde to provide easier access to clean and economical energy. To enable the poorest to equip themselves very quickly, without down payments she offers them an innovative type of leasing, pay-as-you-go: repayments are proportional to consumption.
