Support for more than 6,000 of the poorest of the poor children in the Philippines
The Background
We had recently been invited by Marie Luise Kürschner (wife of a former IRRI scientist) and Achim Dobermann to the awarding of Annemarie Lampe Bona Via Foundation BSC Scholarships to girls from the FACFI foundation. These are children from the poorest parts of the society in the Philippines, all with very troubled backgrounds. The awarding event was very moving. got awarded a scholarship, close than 3,000 students were in the audience.
Here is a bit of background on the Bona Via foundation and the FACI foundation of the Sisters of Mary:
- https://bona-via-foundation.de/en
- https://www.facfi.org.ph
- Video of the girl’s performance during the awarding ceremony we attended
How can we help? A first quick assessment
During the second day of our visit, Mavic and I got a tour from Sister Tess over their two campuses of the Sisters of Mary: Girlstown in Biga, Silang, Cavite, and Boystown in Aldas, Silang, Cavite.
The students are grouped into “families”. Each family has a dormitory style room. Classrooms are on the same floors opposite of the isle. The set-up reminded me a lot of my Bundeswehr times.
As part of the curriculum both schools have vocational training courses. They are certified by TESDA, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority of the Philippines, with different courses offered to the girls and to the boys. The Schools have actually good facilities and workshops, a bit outdated in some areas though (e.g. automotive). The schools work with private companies who provide internships and also absorb many of the schools’ graduates.
Donors have funded a new building at Girlstown that will house more IT related teaching facilities. There are lots of rooms that are not planned for yet. The idea is to ask companies for sponsorships for rooms, they could also provide facilities needed for additional practical training.
Concrete action needs
Boystown has a small farm, totally unproductive, all operations done manually. The biggest problem are poor soils and all work is done with manual hoes. They had two hand tractors before, donations of foreign brands, both are broken and service is not available. They also need help with a new greenhouse and possibly with hydroponics.
The hand tractor is the most straightforward input, I am thinking of approaching some potential donors for a machine, but would want to make sure that the maintenance is guaranteed and operators are trained. Maintenance could be done at the Boystown mechanical workshop, used for vocational training (TESDA certified) for the boys. But training on hand tractor maintenance and repair would be needed. For the initial training we have teamed up with Otep, agricultural Engineer of the International Rice Research Institute.
The Girlstown campus has a soccer field in very bad condition. It is also very large, international standard, and there are ideas to convert it into several smaller “Fotsal” fields that would be more suitable for the students. I would usually suggest laser leveling the field and then re-establishing the grass, but I think nobody would provide that as a free service. So some basic rehabilitation of the grass and splitting the field into several smaller ones could be done instead. But they would also need some walk behind or ride-on lawn mower, currently the kids cut the grass manually with 100 grass scissors, which is not really a sustainable way to do this.
Our Ideas for Support
So the first idea is to help with some sustainable mechanization for the farm and the soccer field. Main help would be in kind by giving advise. I would be willing to put some time into this.
Second we are approaching some companies that have Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs to evaluate whether support to the schools could fit under those.
The Third idea is to come up with a GoFundMe campaign to get money for new hand tractor and lawn mowers. Please consider providing some funds.
And fourth, we would like to approach companies regarding sponsoring updated equipment or rooms in the new building.