Project Updates

Assistance and Support for Daycare Children and Empowerment of Women in

Highly Depressed Urban Poor Communities

Archdiocese of Manila

Proponent: Akap Bata sa mga Guro-Kalinga, Inc.

Sharlyn delos Santos (not her real name), 7 years old, is a daughter of a street vendor and construction worker. She works on the street to help her parents care and feed for her and her 11 other siblings in Paco, Manila. They live in a cramp 4 x 5 meter house in Paco, Manila. She is one of the millions of street children in the Philippines. Through the support of Akap Bata she was encouraged in her studies and is now a Grade 1 student in a public school.

Akap Bata’s support program for Day Care children targetted assistance for 185 children in four centers. At the end of the project, they reported assisting 76% or 141 children. The children’s centers are located in Tondo, Manila, Paco, Manila and in the Caritas compound. Teachers in the four care centers were equipped with the skills and experience to provide quality care and non formal education. They attended capability building seminars such as the reentry planning workshop for care teachers and the Revised Manual of Day Care Workers seminar. Another major program objective attained was the decrease by 90% of the rate of malnutrition of the children in the daycare centers. In its “socialized feeding program”, parents contribute three to five pesos daily and a committee of parents takes care of cooking for the children on a scheduled basis. Educational materials were also purchased for the children. The recommendation in their report included the plan to request for funds to open one or two more daycare centers to enable them to reach their target of 185 children.

Pondo ng Pinoy Lending Program

Diocese of Daet

Proponent: Diocesan Multi-Purpose Cooperative

Manay Remy, a fish vendor in the Public Market of Daet, recounted in a recent project visit: “Minsan paiba iba ang dating ng kita (income) ko sa pagtitinda ng isda, Minsan P300, minsan 200 lang, pag medyo siniswerte may P500 sa isang araw, pero ang mahalaga, nakakabayad ako ng regular sa utang ko sa kooperatiba”. Sa ngayon, nakatatlong beses na akong mangutang, dahil sa pautang na ito, tuloy tuloy ang aking pagtitinda.

The microfinance program of MSSD allows small entrepreneurs easy access to credit facilities with features not offered by the local usurers. The project initially started with four beneficiaries, to date the cooperative has 70 members with over P60,000 in savings deposits and share capital and a loan portfolio of over P400,000 in regular and salary loans. Businesses supported inlcude dry goods trading, sari-sari store operations, calamansi and vegetable trading, and fish vending.

Augmentation of the Ecological Waste Management Livelihood for the Scavenger’s Organization

Archdiocese of Manila

Proponent: Archdiocese of Manila Ecology Desk

Under the Ecology Desk is the Kabalikasang Samahan Inc., an organization that helps scavengers in their segregation, collection and marketing of wastes. The main goal of this project is to be able to help the scavengers in forming their own business as a group in five years time. The workers are given a daily allowance of P175 fo rthe work that they do. Pondo ng Pinoy funded the construction of the composting facility. they were able to produce a steel structure for storage and green house. Mang Danilo Estinor, president of the organization, says that this project has helped him in his livelihood, the ecology desk is a safer environment that the dump sites and they even earn more money. Aling Anita, who is in charge of the organization’s marketing department said that the projects allows them to store and properly segregate the waste until it is enough to sell to the recycling plants who pay a bigger amount compared to the junk shops. The greenhouse facility also serves as the demonstration area for segregation and composting education for the public andparochial schools under the diocese.