Gawad Kalinga Project - Rotary Club of Makati

To own a house is a dream every family holds dear and works
hard for. But to millions of Filipino families who live on the margins
of society, that dream remains elusive, an aspiration that seems to
recede farther into the background as a family grows.
Fortunately for many Filipino families, there are organizations
that care to help turn the dream into reality and have crafted a
program that makes that dream take concrete shape. Foremost of
such organizations is the Gawad Kalinga Foundation, or simply GK.
Since 1995, GK has been transforming slums from hotbeds of crime
into model communities, by partnering with NGOs and corporations
that share their ideals and believe in their mission.
In RY 2003-2004, RI Pres. Jonathan Majiyagbe formed a worldwide
task force on poverty alleviation and named PRID Paing Hechanova
to head it. As it happened, then PP Sid Garcia was tapped by DG Jun
Cortes to head the committee at the district level.
With advice from PP Sid, a GK stalwart, then Pres. Rene Benitez,
adopted as its GK village Sitio Kaingin, Brgy. Sto. Nino, Paranaque, a
226-family community located on the other side of the perimeter fence
of the NAIA runway. There the Club built 5 houses, funded the bricklaying
for the muddy pathways that ran through the neighborhood,
conducted two medical missions, hired a nurse to make weekly visits
to the place, constructed a multipurpose building, and conducted
skills training for the residents, high-speed sewing for the women,
welding for the men. The Club also put in place a feeding program
for preschool kids; this was one of the projects visited by then RI
Pres. Jonathan Majiyagbe when he came to Manila in January 2004.

As it turned, however, Sitio Kaingin was also receiving assistance from
another Rotary Club, so RC Makati started to set its sights on a new
community to lend assistance to.
The following year, RY 2004-2005, during the centennial of Rotary
International, then Pres. Freddie Borromeo, under the leadership of
Centennial DG Tony Quila, adopted a new GK community, this time in
Brgy. Sun Valley, also in Paranaque. The place, presciently named Villa
Paraiso, had been razed by a fire that gutted the residents’ makeshift
houses, rendering many of them homeless. The arrival of GK and RC
Makati in their community and in their lives was a timely godsend for
which they are eternally grateful..
Since 2004, the Club has built a new community of renewed people
in Villa Paraiso. It has turned 170 families into homeowners, a title that
means the world to them and which they hold as dear as life itself. Two
matching grants totaling US$46,150 have financed the construction
of two water systems that bring clean, piped water directly to the
taps of 225 households, where before they bought water in plastic
containers from water merchants that charged them sinful rates. Our
MRCFI has constructed a 3-storey building that houses a health clinic, a
library-computer room, and a hall for meetings and social gatherings.
Quarterly medical or dental missions are held in the village, and a clubemployed
nurse serves the health needs of the people. There is a skills
training program for unemployed menfolk, and the children are among
the recipients of the Rotary Anns’ annual Last Angel gift-giving project.
The Club has also run feeding and anti-TB programs for the children.
The sitio’s once-muddy pathways have been laid with bricks, and the
gaily-painted houses reflect the residents’ new hope for a better life.
Two new houses are currently under construction in Villa Paraiso,
thanks to a donation by Ann Pina Rojas and the Rotary Anns from the
proceeds of last year’s Christmas Bazaar. Dir. Fred Menzel oversees Villa
Paraiso in his capacity as GK Chairman.
What the Club has so far done in Villa Paraiso is remarkable by
any measure. What is even more remarkable is the convergence of
resources that made possible the building of a new Villa Paraiso—the
Club and our Foundation, which together built 48 houses; individual
member-donors from our Club, who have donated 37 houses; 16 of our
members’ friends and relatives, who donated as many houses; and a
number of foreign Rotary Clubs and their members—6 Japanese Clubs
with 6 houses, RC Five Points with 1, and six of our Sister Clubs: RC
Kuala Lumpur Diraja, 2; RC Bukit Bintang, 2; RC Hong Kong, 1; RC Itako
of Japan, 1; RC Sydney of Australia, 14; and RC Taoyuan of Taiwan, 33.
The matching grants for the water projects, on the other hand, were
supported by contributions from RC Taoyuan, District 3500, RCMI and
The Rotary Foundation for the first grant; and RCMI, RC Gunma, and TRF
for the second.
It is also worthy of note that a few of our Sister Clubs have gone
beyond just giving money for the houses—Rotarians from Sydney,
Bukit Bintang and Itako have taken the time to visit, to see the place
for themselves and appreciate how their generous assistance has
made a difference in the people’s lives. Our friends from RC Taoyuan,
the biggest single donor Club to the housing project, has done us one
better, by taking up paint brushes to put the finishing touches on some
of the houses they donated.
Most remarkable of all is the coming together of hearts and hands
to make the promise of “Villa Paraiso”—a village paradise—a tad truer
for the residents whose humble dream of owning a decent home in a
decent place is closer to reality today than it has ever been.