Dear Supporter,
We hope this update report finds you and your family safe and healthy.
We are sharing our 9th COVID-19 Response Report, highlighting our activities and achievements from April - June 2021 in Cebu and Leyte. Since our last report, here are some of the key interventions and impacts we have achieved thanks to your generous donations;
A situational Snapshot - July 2021
FundLife continues to be deeply concerned by the ongoing educational shutdown and child rights emergency that has seen children out of school for 480 consecutive days - the longest educational shutdown across all of Asia.
In addition to children missing out on learning, they have also been subject to home curfew orders, which has created concerns over their physical and mental health. With the Philippines not yet open for domestic or foreign travel, the economic impact of COVID-19 continues to impact the most marginalised communities.
While the impacts of COVID-19 are far-reaching, the consequences of the prolonged lockdowns are most pronounced for children and their ability to access quality education and opportunities to reach their full potential. Our commitment over the coming months is to support the restoration of educational services for children where we have reach.
Priorities for the next three months
We close by again extending our gratitude at the level of support our work has been given through generous donations such as yours. We share some photos and links to demonstrate the impact our work is having.
For more info please do follow us on FB where we make daily updates www.facebook.com/fundlife and www.facebook.com/girlsgotthis
With gratitude and hope,
Marko
Links:
Dear Supporter,
Firstly, from everyone at FundLife, we hope this mail finds you and those closest to you safe and healthy.
In sharing our latest update on the work your gifts are directly supporting. We hope you are encouraged by our impact and the real difference it is making to some of the hardest to reach communities in Leyte and Cebu. Because of your help, we have been able to reach thousands of children, young people and their families who continue to feel the devastating and prolonged impact of COVID-19.
A 5-min video showing Our Response
To better demonstrate our work, we share our COVID-19 Response Video here, which shows all of our activities over the last 12 months that were made possible through your donations.
Month by Month Report for our Work (See Attached File).
We also share a detailed report that shows the reach of our COVID-19 response. In total, we were able to provide consistent support during the last 12 months for over 35,000 people through food, hygiene and educational packs to keep them safe and in food security. In addition to this, we have been able to launch and sustain several education interventions for children and youth from these same communities. Much of this would not have been possible without the support of the GlobalGiving community.
An example of Youth Leadership in Action
One fantastic story from just one of the young people FundLife works with is, Yman, who started with FundLife as a student and play in 2014 and has developed into an amazing youth role model for her peers and children. Yman has been one of the countless youth leaders active in leading COVID-19 Education Sessions for children. To read more about Yman's work, please follow our social media pages..
A detailed update on our work to help children and youth.
Since June 2020, our team has created, produced and shared via social media over 70 education and protection videos to help youth cope with COVID-19 lockdowns. The videos were viewed over 100,000 times and our posts for youth had a total reach of 650,000 people across the Philippines. These videos have provided vital social and emotional support for youth who are suffering from the impact of highly disrupted learning and social life.
In December, we conducted a youth survey with over 250 highly vulnerable youth, which found over 80% of young people were experiencing anxiety and worry since COVID-19. It also showed that 64% of youth found it difficult or very difficult to learn effectively from home. This survey confirmed wider data that showed the impact of COVID-19 has contributed to over 2 million students dropping out of formal education. Moreover, our own research shows that those still in education are not able to keep up with the work.
Our Planned Response over the next 3 months
In order to keep our vital work going, we ask for your continued support by sharing our video and reports and where possible, support us to reach even more young people. As you can read below, the new emergency for so many children is education.
From the entire FundLife team,
Thank you for your support!
Further situational analysis of growing educational emergency in the Philippines due to COVID-19.
11th March 2021, marks exactly one year since the first school closed its doors to students in the Philippines. By the end of March 2020, all public schools, which support 25 Million students, were closed due to COVID-19. One year later, all schools remain shut for regular classes with there being no plans to reopen until vaccines are available. According to a recent report by WHO, this might not be before 2023, at the earliest.
In order to keep learning, children are required to study from their homes, often without access to online resources or teacher support. Before COVID-19, five out of ten families were deprived of access to basic education. The onset of the pandemic and subsequent closure of schools has exacerbated the education emergency for millions of children.
We continue to support children with our existing programming and exploring partnerships with the Ministry of Education offices, schools and all stakeholders seeking to help children keep learning.
Dear Supporter,
We hope this update report finds you and your family safe and well.
We are writing to share with you our 4th update COVID-19 Response Report that covers our core activities and efforts from August - October. A comprehensive report is attached to this note for your reference.
Carrying on from our previous report (August) that signalled our intent to focus on young people, FundLife has been working closely with local partners to fill gaps for highly vulnerable young people that have seen their education and access to child protection services heavily hit due to COVID-19. We have also observed, through primary research as well as mounting global evidence, that girls continue to be disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and we continue to prioritise the protection of girls and women in both our regular programming as well as COVID-19 response operations.
Since our last report, here are some of the key interventions and impacts we have achieved;
While it is clear the impact of COVID-19 has been sudden and serve, we are cognizant that the long-term impacts on already vulnerable groups will be harsher still. As we move into the tenth (10th) month, we remain committed to supporting young people not just in meeting their basic educational and safety needs, but also to ensuring they are supported in achieving their goals before COVID-19.
Above ensuring all young people can survive the impacts of COVID-19, we want to make sure they are able to thrive and keep their hopes, spirits and most importantly, dreams alive!
On behalf of everyone at FundLife, we are deeply grateful for your ongoing support. Without your donations, our COVID-19 response would not be possible.
Wishing you and those closest to you a safe and very happy remaining 2020.
Sincerely,
Marko
Links:
Dear Supporter,
We hope this update report finds you safe and well.
We are writing to share with you our updated COVID-19 Response Report that covers our main activities and efforts throughout June and July. You will find the complete activity report attached to this email. We encourage you to peruse at your convenience to understand the impact your generous donation has had and continues to have on some of the most vulnerable people across the Philippines.
At the time of writing the report, FundLife and it's local partners have reached over 27,500 people living in poverty and who have been put into poverty since COVID-19. Many of these people have been helped through on-going support and assistance. Full details of our on-going community efforts can be seen in the full report.
The situation in the Philippines remains extremely precarious as quarantine measures are still in effect across all parts of the country. While we are very pleased to report extreme lockdowns have eased somewhat in Cebu City, the economic impact very real with millions of people out of work and struggling to put food on their tables. A survey carried out in July showed that unemployment has passed 45% and Ibon Foundation, a think-tank NGO based in Manila estimates that out of the 18.7 million people the government earmarked for support, less than half have been reached, leaving over 8 million people out of work and out of any government-led help.
In addition to responding to the primary needs of families and children, FundLife has been working to ensure education is not forgotten. At the time of writing, it has already been 160 days that children have been out of any learning and last week the Government announced that education won't resume until October at the earliest. The prospect of children returning to school this year is highly unlikely.
For the 250,000 children living in poverty across Cebu, this means they will almost certainly lose an entire year of education if they are not helped. Without access to learning online and with the backdrop of the dire financial situation at home, children as young as 10 risk dropping out of school completely. The risk for girls is even more pronounced as even before COVID-19, girls in poverty faced increased odds of being asked to give up education in order to look after siblings or take over house chores as parents are forced to work.
One example of this new threat is 16-year old Enerstina, who our team met to better understand how COVID-19 has impacted her life. She is just one adolescent girl of the thousands whose education has been ravaged by COVID-19.
In response to this new reality for so many children and especially girls, FundLife will look to prioritise education for children and will start to reach children with special stay-at-home education packs.
We will share more about this in the coming weeks and also the impact your donations continue to have. As always, we remain grateful for the support you continue to provide and invite you to get in touch if you have any questions about our current work.
With gratitude,
Marko
Links:
Dear Friends,
I am writing to share a four-week update report (attached) showing all the communities that we have supported through the One Bayanhian Emergency Response Project to reach and protect the most vulnerable people. Over 95% of the funds we have invested to One Bayanihan to date have come from individual donations via GlobalGiving - without your support, we would not be able to do this urgent and vital work.
In addition to the report, we have published 3 videos of our work via our Facebook page, which you can access here (please like it to follow all our progress). Our recent video shows the resilience and hopes of 3 young people from Sitio Marna, one of the communities we have committed to helping throughout the lockdown.
The full report can be found attached.
As of May 11th, a total of 3,800 families (approx. 17,100 adults and children) have been reached through the One Bayanihan project in Cebu City, Mandaue City and Talisay City, with food packs, hygiene kits and educational protection sessions around COVID-19.
These families represent the most vulnerable groups who often have been wholly reliant on government support and those who have been without income since March 28th. FundLife has also responded to stranded informal workers who do often did not qualify for government support and those without food security.
In addition to regular distribution drives for the most vulnerable, FundLife and Bayanihan Mission have committed to sponsoring Sitio Marna, on the border between Mandaue and Cebu City. Sitio Marna is a densely populated community consisting of 550 highly vulnerable families (approx 2,100 individuals), supported mostly by daily wage earners.
Responding to partner needs, FundLife has also helped to sponsor 32 families in Pasig, Manila, who are under the care of the Gawad Kalinga Football Program. Working and responding to the needs of local government, FundLife has facilitated the production of 150 face-shields and donated them to the Department of Health for direct use by medical practitioners and front liners. In addition to this, Bayanihan Mission, a direct partner of FundLife, facilitated the production of over 3,300 facemasks and 380 face-shields that have been donated to front-liners.
We have committed to continuing our relief operations until at least June 16th to continue providing emergency assistance to families who are still unable to earn under the on-going ECQ. Beyond this, we are already in discussions about recovery support to groups who have been left without long-term employment because of COVID-19.
Thank you for all your support, which is what makes our work possible.
Please stay safe during these difficult days for us all.
With gratitude,
Marko
Links:
Project Reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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