We are continuing our support for Typhoon Sendong survivors by building more portable ecosan toilets and starting a vegetable gardening and tree planting initiative. The portable ecosan toilets are built in scattered communities with no sanitation system while the vegetable gardening initiative is designed to provide the survivors with continuous food supply while they are beginning to start their agricultural and food production activities. The tree planting is for upland areas in both cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan and designed to prevent flash flooding.
We have added 15 more portable ecosan toilets as of last report and started vegetable gardening with 300 families. We have raised also 4,500 seedlings of different fruit and timber trees in our nursery and this will be ready for planting during the rainy months starting June.
Small, doable projects that use very little financial resources to implement are the initiatives of choice of the youth who are participating in the Ecolife Hub. For example in this one, they raise vegetables in small plots and take care of it every day then generate products mainly for the home out of it. The technology they derive from the internet and in surfing the web. There is very little that they buy in terms of start-up and all they need are few seeds, water, soil and lots of sunshine. Some of the youths are into raising of small farm animals like chickens, goats and pigs. Surely this is a big boost to the income and nutrition of local families here and they do it themselves. The web is a good teacher and almost all information is present.
