Help Bring a Philippine Community Out of Poverty

After twelve months of activities funded in large part by a grant from the TripAdvisor Charitable Foundation, we, the Gawad Kalinga Boston team, would like to provide our donors with a detailed report of our activities. Our report is divided into three sections, one for each area of focus: home building, community health and social business.

Home building:

• Identified a community of 78 families (GK Ark of Noah) residing in temporary shelters within the town of Bocaue, Bulacan Province, in the Philippines. The community has been an organized GK community for the past 9 years before GK USA-Boston emerged as a sponsor for the community through the TripAdvisor-GlobalGiving grant.
• Built 20 homes for 20 families at the GK Ark of Noah community, with a promise to complete funding all 78 homes in 3 years.

Community health:

• Funded a more robust 2016 community health internship program
• Provided a more closely-monitored curriculum for two 2 University of Massachusetts Medical School community health interns by providing stipends for US-based and local faculty and coordinators, a big resource boost from 2015;
• Enabled cooperation across different disciplines and stakeholders within the Community and Global Health spectrum:
• A local child psychologist with expertise in community mental health was tapped to conduct a Children & Families community wellbeing workshop and provide mentorship in this area to the interns;
• Formed a partnership with on-the-ground community health experts (CIVIKA), who utilized their network to identify local clinics willing to provide additional nursing assistance for the health clinics and immunization programs implemented through the internship program, and also helped design the updated curriculum and provide academic monitoring for the two interns during their 6-week internship;
• Enabled partnerships with local government units and non-government organizations at the town level and at the national level (Department of Agriculture, local Congressman, local mayor) that led to the following benefits:
• Donations of seeds as well as planting and crop consultation for the urban garden project
• The promise to construct a community kitchen from the town “mayor” (“Barangay Captain”) for residents to cook and share the proceeds of the urban garden project.
• Awarded 2 Bachelor of Science in Nursing scholars who will ensure continuity of community health nutrition program, and monitoring of results of the urban garden initiative;
• Implemented 2015 internship project of distributing emergency readiness kits to 100 families in two GK communities;
• Cost savings due to efficiencies were used to build a children’s library for TWO Gawad Kalinga communities, with 500 books donated by a 3rd-party non-profit group who partnered with GK’s Boston chapter.

Social business:

• Provided funds to create awareness around the social enterprise and development intiaitives:
• Funded 3 awareness events: social business roadshow, the GK5K run and the GK Boston basketball tournament
• Funded the production of a fundraising video explaining the mission to build homes for GK Ark of Noah
• Enabled GK USA to pilot the social enterprise and development internship program
• Sponsored the first social business intern who stayed at the GK Ark of Noah community for a week, and who was asked to create a video of her experience for prospective interns

We look forward to funding continued activity for the 2016-2017 funding cycle and intend to grow our activities to other Gawad Kalinga villages in the Philippines.

Links:

• Join us on September 17 for the "Heroes Build" at GK Ark of Noah

On April 22, 2016, Lucas, a nine year-old boy from Needham, Massachusetts visited the GK Ark of Noah village in Bocaue, Bulacan in the Philippines for the first time. He was there to volunteer a few hours of his time to help build homes for the homeless. He came with his father, David, who was a volunteer for Gawad Kalinga's Boston chapter.

Earlier this year, Lucas helped raise funds to build a home at the village for one of its 78 families. He raised $700 on his birthday, when he requested friends and families to donate to the cause through GlobalGiving in lieu of birthday gifts. Lucas came to Bocaue to see the impact of these donations for himself. He came to give, but by the end of his two-day visit, he received much more in return.

As of Lucas's visit, 18 new homes had been built from scratch, and 2 additional homes were extensively renovated. Proceeds from the TripAdvisor Charitable Foundation grant and GK Boston fundraising activities, including proceeds from our GlobalGiving project, funded these homes.  This enabled 20 of the 78 families to move from their temporary lean-tos and shanties to clean, permanent housing with a bathroom, running water, a kitchen, living room, a bedroom and a small loft area. The new homes were built on raised foundations to protect families from frequent flooding that occurs during the monsoon season, when the banks of the Bocaue river overflow.

Lucas spent two days at Ark of Noah, painting homes while taking frequent breaks to play with newfound friends from the village. They played in the shelter of one of the new homes - dry, clean and cool, with a solid concrete floor and even some furniture. The boys sat on a small couch, its plastic covering kept on by the family to make it last as long as possible. His father sat with a few of the village mothers listening to the story of their journey from migrant, illegal settlers into landowners, and now, homeowners.

The 78 families of Ark of Noah banded together over a decade before, when they were still temporary settlers on public land by the Bocaue railroad tracks. With no access to plumbing, permanent housing and a clean, healthy living environment, the families lived a life of desparation. Outsiders treated them like outcasts, as beings less than people. And the families accepted this treatment. After all, who were they to act all dignified if they couldn't even get access to a proper toilet each morning? Who were they to ask others to treat them with respect, if they themselves, and their parents before them, had lived lives as homeless squatters devoid of self-respect and dignity?

The turning point came suddenly and violently, as inevitably the families were violently evicted by the local government. As they watched their shanties demolished before their eyes, the leaders of the community negotiated to relocate to a 1-hectare property owned by a local doctor. At first, the relocation was difficult. Nearby residents were unwelcoming, calling the new occupants "trash", "villains", "evildoers," and predicting a rise of crime in the area due to their presence. 

The landowner let the members of the community purchase the land for themselves and subdivided the property into individual plots of land of about 30 square meters (300 square feet). The families paid off the land in monthly payments over the next five years, finally getting their certificates of title several years ago. Now landowners and not just temporary settlers, the community saw their sense of self-respect and dignity grow. No longer faced with the daily prospect of possible and violent eviction, they were able to lay down roots and commit to living in Bocaue for the long term. They started sending their kids to the nearby public schools. Husbands got jobs at local factories and manufacturing plants. Mothers got livelihood training and generated additional income from cooking and handicrafts. 

As of June 2016, twenty of our 78 families have homes. Another ten will receive their homes by the 3rd quarter of 2016, and we are continuing our fundraising efforts until all 78 families have a permanent roof over their heads, so that they won't have to worry about sleeping on a tarpaulin floor with the threat of disease, fungus, and floods hanging over their heads.

Your contributions have inspired others to donate their time and treasure to assisting the residents of the GK Ark of Noah village. This year, we have had volunteers conduct arts and crafts livelihood training at the village, conduct free health clinic operations, volunteer for home-building. We have had students visit the site from the National University of Singapore and the University of Massachusetts for social entrepreneurship and community health internships.

Thanks to YOUR contributions, the families of Bocaue continue to have HOPE that their first taste of living a life of human dignity is a permanent one. It is a life they now believe that their kids can have too, and which their kids can EXPECT to pass on to their children, and their children's children. The homes that you helped build aren't just shelters. They're enduring monuments to human dignity. They are a symbol of the community's commitment to be upright citizens, productive members of the community. Most importantly, these homes mark the families' progress from a life of poverty to a life of sustainability and dignity.

Lucas heard all of these stories, saw the temporary homes of those families still awaiting funds for a permanent home. And he saw how happy and friendly the people were, because they had hope, and a path out of their current situation. He saw a strong, vibrant and united community that loved him, and thanked him for his efforts. He made friends, young boys his age, who told Lucas they'd be waiting excitedly for his next visit.

Lucas can't wait to be back, and his family are making plans to visit again in the summer of 2017.

Links:

• Lucas's visit to GK Ark of Noah, April 2016