Community empowerment

Poverty incidence in the Philippines remains high, and bringing it down to a more acceptable level remains a huge challenge.

A World Bank report released this year revealed that the poverty rate remained at 21.6 percent in 2015, albeit lower than the 26.6 percent registered in 2006, or an average of 0.9 percentage points reduction per year. In 2015, some 22 million Filipinos, or more than one-fifth of the population, still live below the national poverty line.

It cited a report from Credit Suisse which showed that one percent of Filipinos own more than 50 percent of the country’s wealth, a rate of inequality only topped by Russia, Turkey, and Hongkong.

An Asian Development Bank report, meanwhile, noted that 21.6 percent of the population in the Philippines lives below the national poverty line in 2015. Except for Myanmar and Lao People’s Democratic Republic, which registered 32.1 percent and 23.3 percent in 2015 and 2012, respectively, other countries in the region had a lower percentage of their population below the poverty line. Cambodia had 14 percent (2014), Indonesia 10.6 percent (2017), Thailand 8.6 percent (2016), Vietnam 7 percent (2015), and Malaysia 0.4 percent (2016).

A recent Social Weather Station (SWS) survey also showed that 48 percent of Filipino families, or 11.1 million families, consider themselves as poor as of the second quarter this year.

The Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), under the Department of Science and Technology, has likewise reported that 33.4 percent of Filipino children suffer from stunting or chronic malnutrition.

Realizing that government cannot do the work of reducing, if not totally eliminating poverty alone, the private sector has done its share to reach out to and help the less fortunate. 

One group that is working to help eradicate poverty through community empowerment is the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), a rural development organization which for 58 years now has supported sustainable projects and programs.

By sustainable projects and programs, we mean actual opportunities for communities and local organizations, including schools which are an integral part of the local community, to learn self-sufficiency and resiliency through solutions which improve the health and welfare of the people. Not dole-outs.

We have learned that one of the trustees influenced IIRR to focus on the Philippines. George Sycip, son of the late Washington Sycip, has been an active member of the IIRR since 2003.

George’s leadership in building self-sufficient communities is paving the way for building a legacy inspired by his father’s charity and passion for helping the less fortunate one step at a time.

Starting small, George’s projects in the IIRR reaped so many positive benefits that they became IIRR’s key programs in addressing poverty and empowering rural communities in the Philippines.

For example, the Bio Intensive Gardening (BIG) program, which aims to develop low-cost yet sustainable garden models to strengthen food and nutritional security in the Philippines, benefited 3,393 students with 90 gardens built in 2017 alone, but is now expanding to various provinces. Aside from school gardening, BIG has also encouraged and trained 335 households to plant their own vegetable gardens as food and alternative income sources.

The BIG project has proven so successful over the years and has been received enthusiastically by teachers, principals, and local communities that the Department of Education decided to allot funds for the IIRR to conduct training sessions for 1,000 public school teachers across the Philippines for the national roll-out of the Integrated School Nutrition Model this year.

Who would have thought that this IIRR project, which was pioneered and supported by George Sycip, started with only five schools in Cavite, but is now scaling up to over 2,700 schools with over two million students.

The BIG project was even highlighted in the recently-concluded First Global Farm Tourism Summit in Tagaytay City, hosted by the Department of Tourism.

George also plans to further introduce soil regeneration initiatives in the country and is likewise looking at pursuing coastal initiatives such as establishing marine protected areas for coral reefs and fishes to regenerate and grow.

Meanwhile, the IIRR regularly organizes training workshops to provide technical assistance for farming and livestock. IIRR is bent on addressing poverty by strengthening food and nutritional security and rekindling interest in agriculture.

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