Transforming rural communities in the Philippines  

The lives of people living in remote villages of the Tinglayan mountains of the Philippines are being transformed, as they are enabled to grow a variety of crops with plentiful harvests. Families like Helen’s struggled to produce adequate food, leading to malnutrition and community instability.  It was normal for a father to leave his family to seek labouring work in an urban district, so spend months away from his wife and children. In lean months it was common for people to eat only twice a day. Quality of life was poor and people saw little hope of their situation changing. 

Now, however, Helen enjoys a plentiful harvest of beans and other crops, sufficient for her family to eat a healthy diet of three meals a day, as well as having a surplus to sell.  The demand for beans is high and they provide a vital source of income, which is enabling Helen to meet her family’s daily needs and buy such things as sugar, salt and soap more easily. Now able to invest in their education, Helen looks forward to an even better future for her children. 

“My children hope to complete their education and get good jobs. One wants to become a policeman, one an engineer and one a priest.” 

Receivers to Givers is a community development programme, which helps a community make an evaluation of its assets, including people’s skills and strengths as well as their physical and environmental resources.  A potential income generating initiative is then identified and a small start-up loan made available to put it into action.  Being transformed from Receivers to Givers is central to the programme. Once a project has been set up and the start-up capital repaid, the newly transformed community are in a position to assist neighbouring communities in a similar way – so they are no longer just receivers but become givers themselves, bringing to them a greater sense of responsibility, dignity and worth.