Forty from 25, homecoming celebration benefits Gawad Kalinga

Dylan and Anna Wilk meet with CSA 85 in July 2008

When I was in Manila last year, I met with my batchmates from Colegio San Agustin High School Batch 85, who were planning our silver (25th year) homecoming activities. The concept of celebration is the act of recognizing something either individually or a group. This “something” could be an achievement, the passage of time and phases of life (anniversary), and most importantly, the recognition that one has grown and learned something. The act of recognition could be spontaneous or highly organized. The point though should be that the celebration does not signify the end of this “something”, but the continuation of achievement, ageing with grace, and continued learning and growth. Somehow the talk moved from not only celebrating more than 30 years of friendship and memories, but how to leverage the celebrations to give back to our community and country. We began to discuss how to make our homecoming not only social, but socially relevant. The proposed partner in this endeavor, by default, became Gawad Kalinga.

In July 2008, Dylan and Anna Wilk presented to us the GK model and how our batch could play a role. Right after Dylan gave his inspirational spiel, four of my batchmates pledged to fund a home. Others pledged to build homes in honor of our six batchmates who had gone ahead. By the end of the week, my batch committed to initiate two GK projects. The first is to jumpstart the establishment of the Colegio San Agustin GK Village in a pre-identified site in Taguig City, near the C-6 highway to be completed by the shores of Laguna de Bay. The second is to encourage Batch 85ers of other high schools to contribute GK homes in honor of their school to a proposed All 85 GK Village.

Gawad Kalinga (GK- “to give care”) is an ambitious community development movement scaling up into a nation building movement seeking to address poverty in Philippine urban slums. In 2003, it initiated “GK777” to build 700,000 homes in 7,000 communities, in seven years through sharing of time and resources, massive mobilization of volunteers and “padugo”- “bleeding for the cause” and modeling “patriotism in action”. Since then, it has built over 30,000 homes in over 2,000 communities of varying stages of development for the poorest the poor and initiated activities in several other countries, with intentions of going global.

Gawad Kalinga was an attractive partner to us because:

1. GK is about spirituality;
2. GK promotes family values;
3. GK promotes Philippine culture and international cooperation;
4. GK initiates community organization and development;
5. GK promotes economic productivity, sufficiency, and a moral economy;
6. GK inculcates environmental values and environmental programs;
7. GK seeks to improve/spur education, values transformation, and capacity building; and,
   
8. GK is changing the nature of politics in the Philippines.

GK777 culminates in year 2010, which is our 25th anniversary year. As we can see it, GK still has a long way to go, inspite of the fact that more than 300 mayors, 150 schools and universities, over 400 corporations, and tens of thousands of volunteers have mobilized and acted. We think that as Filipinos (or those in love with the Philippines), we need to fully support this Philippine creation and initiative. Gawad Kalinga’s model will eventually become the brand name of the Philippines and it is something to be proud of as Filipinos, as Christians, as members of society. This is the most holistic, comprehensive, and equitable model for solving poverty and inequality in Philippine society.

2010 also is the Philippines’ national elections. In fact, many other countries will have their own elections. The global economic crisis will either improve or worsen by then. Thus, the year is both critical as it is auspicious. Our task then is to prime the social environment in such a way that it encourages good citizenship, caring, sharing, and responsible action. We would like to model these traits collectively.

GK Tony Meloto and Taguig Mayor Freddie Tinga with CSA priests and teachers at the CSA GK Village groundbreaking. Photo by Monchot Ongsiako

When our school, Colegio San Agustin (CSA), heard about our initiative they got excited and wanted to participate. Eventually, the project progressed from a CSA85 GK project to a CSA GK Vilage endeavor. CSA signed a memorandum of agreement with GK last February 6, 2009. By 16 February 2009, the CSA GK Village broke ground at the GK site in Purok 5, Barangay Napindan, Taguig City. Forty homes will be built complete with community facilities. The beneficiaries are informal dwellers relocated from the former AFPOVAI site in Fort Bonifacio. Close to 200 families were affected in the relocation. About 176 families agreed to be relocated to this site. Thus, eleven two-storey buildings, composed of 16 units each need to be constructed for them. CSA Batch 85ers both in the Philippines and abroad committed 10 homes/units and community development support, including two homes to the All 85 GK Village, which I’ll write about in another article.

GK Tony Meloto with CSA85ers. Photo by Monchot Ongsiako

GK inspired us. We dreamt of a CSA GK Village. We dared to build and hoped that the CSA community would join us. They did as inspiring hope is contagious. We yearn to celebrate more than 30 years of friendship by giving back to community and country. We honor our six batchmates who’ve died by giving hope and a dignified life to our less fortunate brothers and sisters.

As St. Agustine said, “What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”

CITIZENS’ ACT: WALANG IWANAN! ANO ANG TAYA MO PARA SA BAYAN?

Walang Iwanan! Ano ang Taya mo para sa bayan?

Social changes per political scientist Karol Soltan (1996) are large scale, require revolution or extensive institutional reform, and have pervasive and long term societal consequences. Several social movements worldwide, working with the bottom of the pyramid or the poorest of the poor, claim success in social change. Some social movements are spurring social change by inspiring it, and addressing poverty via massive mobilization of people, resources, technology, and skills, as well as developing strong community relationships. Many have replicated and are “scalable” globally.

Social movements are commonly associated with contestations against the state, the powerful, and dominant cultural codes. The focus of analysis on their effectiveness has been on the strategic use of conflict of varying degrees. However, modeling best practices, social justice, and transformational engagement with power holders in housing, environment, livelihood, education, and human rights sectors, among others, are strategies and core principles of a number of social movements that have replicated and scaled up. One such movement is Gawad Kalinga, which seems to be reconceptualizing social movements beyond collective action in conflict settings.

Before Gawad Kalinga, the Catholic charismatic movement called Couples for Christ (CFC) began ministering to out-of-school youth and gang members in the mid-1990s. As an evangelistic and missionary movement, CFC’s work with the youth was one of several initiatives in conjunction with its Seven Pillars, namely; evangelization and missionary work, pastoral support, strengthening of the family, promotion of social justice and human development, Gawad Kalinga, promoting and defending life, and special ministries.

It was not easy. CFC’s Tony Meloto, the public face and spiritual founder of Gawad Kalinga, and his then young daughters were rudely greeted and threatened when they first sought to start the youth program in the slum relocation site of Bagong Silang, Caloocan City. It took a lot of prayers, effort, and time spent in Bagong Silang before they could establish a relationship based on friendship, trust, and mutual assistance. Bagong Silang is a failed government-initiated relocation site. In fact, it is the biggest relocation site and barangay in the country with at least one million resident-relocatees. Because of practically non-existent government relocation assistance and social services, poor infrastructure, high rates of poverty and unemployment, and general apathy from society, there were very low trust levels, rampant criminality, and unsafe and poor living conditions. Bagong Silang was exactly the opposite of its name (new birth).

Globe TM Village, Bagong Silang, Caloocan City

CFC volunteers realized early on that while these troubled youth were improving when they were with CFC, they would revert to their old ways when they returned to their homes and slum environment. It finally dawned on them that the environment needed to be changed. The swamp needed to be drained of poverty, inequality, and social exclusion. These youth needed another chance in life. At its most basic, these children needed a home they could feel safe in, live in comfortably, and reestablish their family relationships. They needed both a physical and spiritual environment to heal.

From the few homes that they fixed, the results were dramatic. Yet these youth and their families struggled to renew themselves in a slum community. The scale of renewal needed to be enlarged. Stable families could build stable communities. CFC’s Seven Pillars provided a holistic approach to family and community development. The model of what is now known as Gawad Kalinga had at its entry point in home building. Providing homes that were comfortable and secure (tenancy-wise) enabled families to save, invest, regain their dignity, and rebuild their lives. Supporting these families and eventually their communities with education, health, values transformation, community organizing, livelihood/productive opportunities, and spiritual ministry provided for individual and community empowerment. In Bagong Silang, the first family they helped is a continuing testament to the viability of this model.

This family was squeezed into a tiny, run-down home. The parents had intermittent, very low paying jobs. All the children were drop-outs. Two of them were gang members. One was a run-away. CFC-GK worked with them, repainted, and eventually rebuilt their 20 sq meter home. The transformation has been dramatic as it is miraculous. Today, their home is a two-storey, concrete, and 60 sq. meter home that is a symbol of faith at work and community self-help. Today, the mother heads their community’s GK Micro-lending program. The father is active in the gardening and feeding programs of GK. Five of the six children finished college and are either working or helping out with GK. They paid a high price though. One of the sons was knifed dead when he tried to help a friend-neighbor attacked by gang members. In growing GK, advocates heed the call of padugo or bleeding for the cause. In Bagong Silang, GK volunteers and beneficiaries have literally paid in blood with Tony Meloto burying six youth killed in gang-related violence.

Globe GK Village in Bagong Silang

From this one home, there are now 1,700 GK communities in various stages of establishment all over the country. GK has started in several other countries as well, with Africa in its eyesight. It has replicated and scaled up with the sacrifices of its CFC core of volunteers and partnerships with the national government, over 300 mayors, over a 100 corporations, over 150 schools and universities, overseas Filipinos and their foreign friends, the tri-media, and on-line communities. It has established a decentralized GK Builders Institute nestled in various universities to tap into their organizational and technical expertise and meld the ‘science and spirit’ of community development.

It has ramped up its partnership with towns and town officials. In the process GK is helping local officials become better governors of their resources as they address poverty and homelessness. Last August 8, 2008, it launched the Taguig Designer City (TDC) initiative, wherein the City of Taguig with the help of GK seeks to unsquat the whole of Taguig using the GK model. It will provide city-owned land, manpower, and resources in this endeavor. The TDC shows how modeling best practices in community development can attract the support, if not wholesale adoption, of a community development model by local officials and power holders.

The successes, experiences, and knowledge gained by GK in the past six years enabled it to replicate and scale up. There are many ways of explaining this, but the simplest is this. A movement emerges out of a passion for something. It grows because this passion is shared by many who are willing to sacrifice or in GK’s case, padugo. Padugo enables initial success, builds character, provides leeway for experimentation and recoverable failure, and importantly, generates credibility. Credibility borne out of padugo attracts partners. Once partnerships reach a critical mass the movement snowballs. It is then nurtured by creativity and innovation in its organizational and mobilization aspects. Gawad Kalinga, at its essence, has always been a movement based on holistic human development that is being upscaled.

GK community meeting at Bagong Silang

Make no doubt about it; GK’s vision is to build a new Philippines based on love of God, country, family, and neighbor. On October 11, 2008, it will launch its most ambitious program to achieve its goal of 700,000 homes in 7,000 communities in seven years (GK777). GK will launch the CITIZENS’ ACT: WALANG IWANAN! ANO ANG TAYA MO PARA SA BAYAN? At the Fort, Taguig City. This will be a year long campaign to inspire the Philippine Congress to allocate P500 billion for housing, community development, productivity, and other human development programs for the country’s five million poorest families for the next 10 years.

As counterpart or padugo to this allocation for the poor, GK will likewise launch the “Tao Po! Campaign” to tap at least five million Filipinos nationwide and all over the world to promote this Citizen’s Act and to volunteer in ensuring that the funds are used wisely. The campaign will also tap colleges and universities, civic organizations, NGOs, corporations and their employees, and local government units. This national grassroots campaign is consistent with the view of GK that the problems of poverty are so massive that neither government nor the private sector can address it in isolation. It must be national and international mobilization of people power, resources, and skills. This is collective action on national and transnational scales that will morally pressure, if not encourage, the Philippine Congress and government to act.

GK para sa Bayan

In the Citizen’s Act, we see even more clearly the fusing of bayani, bayanihan, and bayan.

Walang iwanan, ano ang taya mo bayani?

People helping people, the Gawad Kalinga way

“In the United States, no Filipino became homeless or a beggar. Filipinos did not build squatter communities here,” so said Gawad Kalinga’s Tony Meloto.

Behind these two statements is the development and prosperity key that enabled Filipinos in the United States to have the second highest per capita income of all Asian-American groups. Fil-Ams are the largest source of remittances to the Philippines. They are, in essence, the embodiment of the American dream.

How did they do this?

Simply, they live and progressed in the right environment.

GK Poveda Village, Taguig City 2007

Filipinos need an environment where they can meet their basic physical needs, live in security and dignity, and become the best they can be. Anthropologists call this the household livelihood security framework. It is about having the resources to make the right choices.

In the United States, despite the country’s historical problems with discrimination, Filipinos have prospered because their talents and hard work are appreciated. They are paid well enough to buy a house, support their families, invest, and earn more.

The good infrastructure facilitates moving around, doing business, and enhances communication, and information gathering. In the United States you can make things happen faster and hence, get results quicker.

In general, the law is straightforward and followed. Among ordinary Americans, a handshake agreement is kept because one’s name is sacred. This makes business relatively safe and secure.

In the United States, if you’ve fallen into hard times or need a start in life, you can access educational, health, job support, even monetary assistance. People and institutions are there to help. All you have to do is ask.

The strategy looks simple, but it took decades of discussion, conflict, trial and error, painful experiences, and deep reflection. Today, the United States is the most prosperous country in the world (despite current difficulties).

The poorest of the poor are just like you and me. They have dreams and aspirations for a better life for themselves and their families. They are survivors. With the right environment, they can blossom, like any Filipino or American. They have an innate potential to do good, become even better persons, and can be an asset to the Philippines.

All they need is the right environment.

Again Gawad Kalinga’s Tony Meloto:

“The saying,’Give someone fish and he will continue to ask for fish; but teach someone to fish and he will fish for himself’ is not true in the Philippine setting. The poor know already how to fish, but they ain’t fishing! We need to change the environment for the poor to become God’s perfect creation.”

We need an environment where institutions work, things are predictable, and where hard work, talent, and persistence are rewarded. Sharing and caring are also needed in smoothing out the rough edges of capitalism and competition. A sustainable economy is one where people can be the best they can be, while the vulnerable are protected and nurtured to independence. Freedom and responsibility form the two sides of the development coin.

Gawad Kalinga is shortcutting the U.S. development model. By building 700,000 homes in 7,000 communities, in seven years, Gawad Kalinga seeks to spur five million of the poorest Filipinos out of extreme poverty. The massive and ambitious home building goal generates the economies of scale to tackle the seemingly insurmountable problem of poverty. It creates an environment of on-the-job training, cooperation, sharing and caring, and an economic multiplier effect. It channels resources to fighting poverty without the draining effects of corruption, graft, and red tape.

To spur institution building, Gawad Kalinga communities are supported by a seven point ON-SITE community development program that includes: (1) site and shelter development, (2) community organization/Kapitbahayan and values transformation, (3) community-based health program, (4) child and youth development, (5) economic productivity, (6) environment, and (7) a Mabuhay/ welcome program.

Only a holistic program that develops the individual, family, and community will succeed in building strong institutions in the Philippines. Only organized, principled, and economically and environmentally sustainable communities can survive and withstand the vagaries of Philippine politics, poverty, inequality, and social exclusion.

With 1,700 communities established since its launching in 2003, more than half a million poor Filipinos are enjoying their own colorfully painted homes amidst a safe, secure, and happy community. They are beginning to access education, health, training, livelihood, and capacity-building services.

More needs to be done and more poor Filipinos need to be helped. Why wait for an armed revolution or a breakdown in society to change, when there is an alternative way based on love, sharing and caring, and padugo- bleeding for the cause literally in blood, sweat, and tears?

Gawad Kalinga, meaning to give care, is building God’s Kingdom here on earth.

Join us in this journey.

See www.gawadkalinga.org or www.ancopusa.org for more details.

Anthropology of Relevance

Anthropology of Relevance

Recently in an egroup that I am part of that discusses environment, culture, and geopolitical issues, there was a spirited exchange on the relevance of anthropology and anthropologists in these exciting times. Wading through the verbal firestorm, I found many insights, which will help me in my current dissertation work. I would like to explore other aspects though of the ongoing conversation.

The first is that I seem to notice a collective angst on what anthropology’s status and role are at present. What is it’s contribution to the GES (global environmental sustainability) and gepolitical debates in the macro sense? Specifically, are anthropologists being read, listened to, and recognized especially by decision makers? Does their work have impact in the local and in the global settings? Should anthropologists even care if their work has impact? The angst is there because of global warming and the continuing Iraq debacle, among others. Anthropologists long knew what was wrong and what should be done, but why were our voices not heard? Our advice not heeded? The prophet was not recognized in his hometown, so what now?

Might the issue have to do with scale? The GES and Iraq occupation have global consequences but anthropologist’s work is generally site specific. Our findings and insights may improve our understanding of human culture, but what next? Who will bridge the gap of theory to practice for the WORLD to use? Do we let others do it or do we, ourselves, complete the “supply chain”? A few others cited many anthropologists doing terrific, groundbreaking work theoretically and in the applied setting. Shouldn’t the challenge then be scaling up and replication if these works posit best practices the world can benefit from?

My research focuses on a faith-based movement in the Philippines known as Gawad Kalinga meaning “to give care”. It aims to build 700,000 homes, in 7,000 communities, in 7 years or the GK777 movement. In Gawad Kalinga, the thesis is that poverty is behavioral not economic. Poverty results from a breakdown of relationships among family members, between neighbors, between social classes, and within society. Thus, the rich need to become better stewards of their resources, talents, and time. The poor need to regain their dignity, hope, and dreams, and to build capacities. Both can do so by helping each other, working together, and building partnerships.

Slum home in Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines

Gawad Kalinga housing
Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines

In practical terms poverty (and the resulting environmental crisis) can be addressed through sharing of time and resources, MASSIVE mobilization of partners and "padugo"- "bleeding for the cause" and modeling "patriotism in action". Since then, it has built over 20,000 homes in 1,420 communities for the poor and initiated activities in three other countries, with intentions of going global. GK claims their "transformed" communities are peace and faith zones, environmentally healthy, empowered, and productive through initiatives on shelter, youth development, health, food, livelihood, and values formation. GK claims their sites are “non-sectarian, multi-sectoral, non-partisan and non-discriminatory”. Each volunteer is a hero (bayani) to one another, which leads to community-wide assistance (bayanihan). Replicated over time sand space, bayanihan then stimulates nation (bayan) building. GK’s success resulted in the GK Executive Director/Founder and the organization winning the 2006 Ramon Magsaysay (Asian Nobel prize) awards for individual and organizational community leadership and other similar awards. They have gotten so much support from the private and public sectors that other cause oriented groups and aid agencies have been put on notice: deliver or lose support.

By the way, they are also currently recruiting another one million volunteers worldwide and establishing volunteer research institutes in any university willing to partner up with them. They are becoming viral.

The movement is anchored on faith, culture work, and partnerships. Importantly, it is massive in scale (geographically) and is transformative in intention.What can be more cultural (for research and applied work) than social engineering initiatives such as this?

The implication for anthropologists today is that social movements like Gawad Kalinga or MoveOn, social networking initiatives such as MySpace and FaceBook, faith-based movements or even the Christian Right is that their outlook is global. Their actions are cheekily in the pursuit of some form of “global domination”. Globalization is not only about commerce, but fundamentally cultural. The GES, geopolitics, and poverty are both local and global.

How do anthropology and anthropologists adapt to a shrinking and globalizing world vis-à-vis our research and our work?

To me it isn’t relevance per se. All work is relevant if you find inspiration in it. But if we want others to consider us relevant, then we have to look at reality.

And the reality is: events of concern to anthropologists are global in dimension. Our work and research must then have scientific rigor, practical application, and global insight.

P.S.

I interviewed a British-Nigerian Catholic priest working in the Manila slums. One of his favorite sayings in approximate words is:

“I like the way I am doing things better than the way you aren’t doing anything at all”