School Aid MTÜ — the human heart of the Iloilo Rice Agenda
An independent, non-profit partner delivering farmer training, school and child support, and women's empowerment across Iloilo's rice communities — powerful impact, with an ironclad wall between charity and company.
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An independent partner delivering the community mission
School Aid MTÜ is an Estonian non-profit association (MTÜ) with its own governance, funding and website. Its Philippines programme — Bayanihan (“countrymen, kin, fellow travellers”) — pairs Platinum BioChar for smallholder farmers in Mina with farmer training, school and child support, and community resilience with explicit women's participation. It is legally and financially independent of Biomass Asia Inc.
Visit School Aid MTÜ ↗The ironclad wall — charity and company kept separate
Biomass Asia Inc.
- Produces Platinum BioChar and develops carbon removal (Puro CORC200+ via Carbonfuture).
- Sells biochar and carbon credits at commercial terms.
- Takes no charitable donations; returns flow to investors.
School Aid MTÜ
- Donor- and grant-funded; runs the community & training programme.
- Buys biochar at arm's-length with donor subsidy; restricted-funds discipline.
- Independently governed; BAI treated as a disclosed affiliated supplier with an annual independent price benchmark.
The women leading the mission
School Aid MTÜ is led independently of Biomass Asia — reinforcing the wall between charity and company, and putting women at the heart of the community programme.
- International-education leader — 20+ years across six countries and four continents; inclusive-learning specialist.
- MA International Education (Leadership & Management), PGCE, BSc Developmental Psychology; IB PYP/MYP leader and founding international-school head.
- Leads School Aid's global operations, fundraising and its ring-fenced Philippines programme.
- President of Biomass Asia and the bridge to the community — 20+ years of community-embedded programmes.
- Architect of the farmer partnerships and social licence underpinning the project.
- Co-founded School Aid MTÜ to deliver the community mission independently.
- Veteran Filipino educator — three decades in public education; former Master Teacher I.
- MA Education (Management & Supervision); licensed teacher and national trainer (MTAP; ELLN).
- Directs School Aid's on-the-ground operations across the Philippines and Morocco.
School Aid MTÜ is a separate legal entity; these leaders run the charity independently of Biomass Asia Inc.
Extraordinary socio-economic impact — cleanly structured
The project's community impact is delivered by an independent partner — giving investors a powerful, verifiable ESG and SDG story without charitable liabilities on the company. This is the socio-economic pillar of Governor Defensor's SERBISYO rice agenda: lifting women and children out of poverty and addressing malnutrition in farming barangays.
Farmer households
Year-1 target — income, training and soil health.
Children supported
School and child support in farming barangays.
Women's participation
Explicit and embedded across the programme.
Fighting malnutrition
Aligned with the province's Benteng Bigas / MoRProGRes drive.
Aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Together, we carry the load. In our tradition, bayanihan is the whole village coming together to lift a neighbour — when a family moves their home, everyone carries it together. That is the spirit of the programme: farmers, families and partners lifting one another — from Mina, for the Philippines.
“Bayanihan” — an original oil painting by Thomas Raffael (in memoriam); a wedding gift from Maribeth de Montaigne to her husband David de Montaigne on their wedding day, 35 years ago. · The programme is delivered with our independent non-profit partner, School Aid MTÜ.
Download the painting — a gift from Maribeth ↓Partner with the Iloilo Rice Agenda
Support farming families, women and children — and durable climate impact.