The Gratitude Fund – Philippines

(Negros Occidental. Visayas)

Barangay  Bantayan is one of the biggest barangays in Kabankalan City with a total population of 10,896.  It is an upland and agricultural community mainly planted with sugarcane and peanuts.  Most of the families are hired hands of big sugarcane plantations and with the low cost of labour poverty is very evident;  families could hardly make ends meet.          

Community associations organised by Ilog Kinderhome Foundation Inc., a non-governmental organisation,  were able to set up small and basic social/community projects that provided access to basic social services in underserved villages which benefited the children, women and families.     These include  2  daycare centres and  4 home-based early childhood care and development centres.   

Sitio Mambaog,  Bantayan is approximately  5 kilometres away from the barangay proper. The road going there is rough and narrow with “habal-habal” as the usual means of transportation.  There is a total of 108 households in  Sitio Mambaog, where around  50%  have difficulty accessing water for their consumption.  Their only source of water is a spring downhill around 1 kilometre away from the many houses,  yet very risky for children, who are expected to perform water fetching tasks for the families. 

Maghirupay, a community association based in Sitio Mambaog have identified improving access to the water system as one of their social goals in 2020.     To realize this goal,  they did some resource mobilization activities and   23 members set up a  special savings fund which enabled them to buy a motor pump and pipes to drive the water closer to their houses. Members of the association worked together to repair the water source and install pipes to pump the water closer to their houses however, they could only collect small amounts of water with their individual pails and small containers.

In another goal-setting session of Maghirupay in 2021,  they set a new goal which is the construction of a water impounding tank so that more families can benefit and avail of the water.