P.R. receives $354K in grants from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation
Two Puerto Rican projects were included in a list of 11 community environmental initiatives related to adaptation to extreme weather and meteorological events that will receive a combined $354,000 in grant support from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) within the framework of its North American Partnership for Environmental Community Action (NAPECA) program.
A trilateral committee was in charge of selecting the 11 innovative projects that will benefit from grants for the 2019-2020 period, among which are the two that will be carried out in Puerto Rico by the Resilient Power Puerto Rico and The Ocean Foundation organizations.
The Resilient Power Puerto Rico project will focus on the promotion and implementation of decentralized community solar systems in the municipalities of Utuado, Jayuya, Aibonito, Caguas and San Juan.
“We’re happy to have been selected. This reaffirms our commitment to the vision of a Puerto Rico where all communities can have access to reliable and clean energy,” said the Executive Director and Secretary of the organization’s board of directors, José Juan Terrasa-Soler.
Meanwhile, The Ocean Foundation project will benefit the municipalities of Salinas and Guayama with the restoration of natural infrastructure to strengthen resilience to the effects of climate change.
“By training local organizations in coastal restoration techniques and providing ongoing assistance, we want to equip our partners in Puerto Rico with the tools they need to boost their own projects on coastal resilience, as part of a large-scale effort in across the island to improve infrastructure and make communities more resilient to storms and increasingly severe floods,” said Ben Scheelk, program manager at The Ocean Foundation.
The organization is dedicated to promoting innovative and personalized philanthropic solutions aimed at individual, corporate and government donors with a passion and commitment acquired for the conservation of coasts and oceans throughout the world. The Ocean Foundation operates as a community foundation.
“We’re proud to support local entities across North America that are taking a novel approach to an urgent issue that affects us all. Action at the community level will complement the ongoing work on preparedness and resilience to extreme events that the CEC is undertaking at the trilateral level. We sincerely thank all those who applied to the North American Partnership for Environmental Community Action this year,” said Richard Morgan, executive director, Commission for Environmental Cooperation.
Through grants from the NAPECA alliance, the CCA supports nonprofit and non-governmental entities in Canada, the United States and Mexico that work closely with local and indigenous communities to improve environmental conditions at the local level.
The members of the CEC Council agreed that the theme for this grants cycle from the NAPECA program would be: For the adaptation of communities to extreme weather events, whose objective is to broaden the impact of CEC actions aimed at contributing so the three North American countries face the effects of extreme natural events more effectively, the entity said.
