Members of the governing board and technical working group of Tacloban Airshed embarked on a Capacity Building/Benchmarking activity. This was conducted at the National Capital Region from October 24-28, 2016. VFV sits as board member of Tacloban Airshed.
The bench marking enabled members of the board and technical working to grasp the best practices of NCR Airshed and adopt such for implementation at Tacloban Airshed. Tacloban Airshed aims to improve and maintain good air quality in the area and reduce negative impacts on human health and environment.
The National Capital Region (NCR) Airshed gave an orientation on the first day. They discussed the issues and concern NRC Airshed have encountered from the beginning up to present, best practices, and present actions and plans for the future of the airshed. A representative from Tacloban City government shared a status update about Tacloban Airshed for the benefit of the members of NRC Airshed.
The members of Tacloban Airshed toured around National Capital Region. We paid a courtesy visit to the office of Environmental Management Bureau-National Capital Region (EMB-NCR). NRC Airshed showed us the laboratory which holds the display of their monitoring stations.
We were able to get an idea of the air quality of a specific area through the data gathered from the monitoring stations. They showed as the equipment used to monitor air quality. We visited Continuous Ambient Air Monitoring Stations (CAMS) that measure the quality and type of air pollutants in a given outdoor area. We also visited differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) which is used to measure trace gases such as zone and nitrogen dioxide.
We learned many things from the benchmarking.
VFV as a social welfare institution advocates for the protection of the environment. That’s the main reason we joined Tacloban Airshed. Our concern for the community must be holistic. This means helping towards maintaining a safe and healthy environment for the people.