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Text of Pamphlet entitled, "Helping Others Help Themselves"

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To most people throughout the world, electricity means progress. But in many of the developing nations, especially in the rural areas, there is no electricity for progress.

Less than one percent of the rural population in the developing nations has electric power today. A little over 30 years ago, only about 10 percent of the people in the rural areas of the United States had electric power.

Today, however, more than 98 percent of the people in the U.S. countryside have modern electric service. They have electricity because they were willing to work for it. They pooled their resources, formed their own electric systems and borrowed money at low-interest rates from the U.S. government to build their co-ops.

Electric power increased farm efficiency and agricultural production, making it possible for the U.S. farmer to keep ahead of growing food and fibre needs. It helped bring about a revolution in agriculture, but it did even more.

Electricity brought light to the rural home. It brought the convenience of electrical equipment and appliances there too. It brought new businesses and industries to rural areas, with new jobs for non-farm workers and a boost for local economies.

These are all tangible benefits of cooperative rural electrification. There also are intangible benefits and the most important of these is the involvement of the people. Cooperative rural electrification is people working together to do what they cannot do alone-to better their lives with electricity.

Co-op members are involved in democratic action. As consumer-owners, each has a voice in the election of co-op directors; each has a voice in co-op policy decisions.

Cooperative rural electrification brought a new way of life to the rural areas of this nation; it can do the same in the developing nations. This country can help the people throughout the world help themselves through cooperative rural electrification.

Helping

Others Help Themselves Through Cooperative Rural Electrification

In 1963, electricity in Santo Domingo de los Colorados, Ecuador, was available only at nightfrom 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. Less than one-quarter of the village homes had electric power. There was no electric service in the surrounding rural areas. Today there is 24-hour electric service in Santo Domingo. For the first time electric power lines reach into the countryside where more than 40,000 people live.

How did all this come about?

Light in
Santo Domingo...

Construction crews move out to build lines.
People are asked to sign up as co-op members.

Early in 1963, a U.S. rural electrification expert was assigned to make a country-wide survey of Ecuador. He was to inventory possible resources for electric service development and to select areas where one or more pilot cooperative projects could be located.

In the village of Santo Domingo, he found only 374 of the 1,600 homes had electric power. Over 1,000 more families wanted electricity.

Based on this need and the prediction by Latin American experts that the area would become a principal city during the next 15 years, Santo Domingo was chosen as the site for Ecua

dor's pilot cooperative rural electric project. }

That same year a team of U.S. specialists went to Santo Domingo to help organize a local co-op committee, to start training potential co-op leaders, and to make plans for development, financing and construction of the electric system.

On March 20, 1964--about a year after the initial assignment-the first consumer-owned electric system organized under the NRECA/AID

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and other surplus materials. This brought electricity to almost half the homes in Santo Domingo.

A $650,000 AID loan was granted later that year to further expand the system to provide electricity to the rest of the city and into the surrounding rural areas. Now the co-op serves 1,300 members, and more are added each month.

To follow-up its earlier assistance. NRECA now provides occasional specialized consultation to Santo Domingo to assure continued progress.

Before the electric system was formed, there was no industrial use of electricity in Santo Domingo. During the first six months the co-op was in operation a 30-room hotel, two bottling plants, two small sawmills, a spaghetti factory, an oil distributor, a coffee and cocoa processing plant and a radio station began using co-op electricity. More industry has since been added to co-op lines.

As the co-op manager said: "The town seems to have taken on a new life. There are new businesses, new industry, more jobs for more people. No longer are people leaving the area."

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