GK is hope, Part 2

For us, the greatest proof was what we saw on the ground, in the Philippines. My daughter Mia and I joined the 2006 Bayanihan Build in Quirino Province. We worked for one week alongside the beneficiary families in building their homes. We dug foundations, poured concrete, made partitions, painted walls. We saw firsthand the bayanihan spirit that building a community evokes. We shared stories of struggle and hope with the families. And we saw the hope that a home brings to a poor family.

And that is the first cornerstone of GK- providing a colorful, decent home one family at a time, one village at a time. For $1500, you can build a small house- 16 ft by 12 ft, made of hollowblocks and concrete, with a real roof, doors, windows. To us this might be small space, but to these families, this is the first time they will have a home. But it is not the house itself that builds the community- it is the working together among neighbors, among the kapitbahayan, that builds the community spirit. This removes the violence and anger- for how can you be angry at your neighbor- he built your house, and you built his. This is the start of moving away from the slum mentality- in one year or less, there is no crime, no violence in GK communities. If you give people a shot at a decent, clean life, they will want to stay that way. In the process, since they were involved with building, the fathers get a culture of “work”, and they become empowered as fathers again- providers and protectors of their family. We shared stories of broken fathers, made whole by the dignity of work in building his family’s shelter.

And that’s where it starts. You also build in the community a school, you provide funds for a qualified preschool teacher, so the kids are in school and not in the streets. You have a program for elementary school-age children (SIBOL), and a program for teens (SIGA). These children will never be slum children again, we have many stories fo former squatters getting college educations. Thus you break the cycle of poverty.

Then you have a livelihood component- Gawad Kabuhayan. This can be site-specific, but example projects include handicrafts, plant nurseries and gardening, vegetable gardening, a fertilizer facility, food (longanisa/tocino) industry, eco-tourism. This makes the village sustainable. Then you have a health component – Gawad Kalusugan- supported by volunteer medical professionals from the Phil and abroad. You focus on eradicating waterborne diseases, immunizations, eradicating TB, providing good health practices. An you have continuous lessons and support for the Kapitbahayan association. You build a real, working community of people so they see each other as a community, uplifting their situations together. You build this for communities of at least 30 houses, and you get the impact of scale. Hindi tingi-tingi. Then you replicate it across the country, and set a big, audacious goal of GK 777- 700,000 homes in 7,000 communities, in 7 years. And you say to each other, kaya natin iyan. It can be done. We saw it in Baseco, Tondo – 3000 homes in what as formerly the heart of violence and gangs among squatters.

Here in North Carolina, we started in 2005, and with the help of our brothers and sisters in Charlotte, the Triad, Asheville, and even SC, we were able to build a village of 30 homes. That is the village we visited in Quirino province. In 2006, once again, the people of NC rose to the challenge, and we were able to fund the Village of the Carolinas II, to be built in Naga City. This year, we are going to rise up to the challenge, and build not just one, but several villages. And we can do it.

It started with a dream, but now it is reality. The dream has become the dream of hundreds of thousands of volunteers in the Philippines and abroad, and we saw this when we were there. People like you and me who may have given up on government, are buying into this dream, and dedicating their lives so we can lift the Philippines from a third world country into a model for development. It is happening- the miracle of GK, that has been recognized by the Phil. Government, by governments in Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, that has been recognized with awards and citations.

But let us not forget that it is powered by love. The volunteers that we met- young college graduates, old folks, balikbayans, showing their love for God and country in this unique way- they were finding a deeper purpose in life because of GK. They have internalized the meaning of “less for self, more for others, enough for all”.

So if you look at GK with our minds – we cannot argue with the results. We can see how effective the approach is. If we look with our hearts, how can we not be touched by this patriotism and love. We say bayan, bayani, bayanihan.

I invite all of you to learn more about GK at www.gawadkalinga.org. We can all be heroes for our country and for the poorest of the poor. GK 777, Kasali tayo diyan!