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Project Report

COOPERATIVE RESTAURANTThe expansion and redevelopment of a co-operative restaurant designed to help the local community tap into the tourist market and thus provide the community with needed income

ORAL HYGIENEEducating the children in the community on how to keep their teeth clean and cavity free

HOMESTAYS Interested in visiting the Philippines and staying with a host family to experience life as a Filipino? Check out the new homestay program

Sustainable Community Livelihood

Development

AGAP

E LOV

E FOU

NDAT

ION

El Nido Palawan, Philippines

2013

Page 2 Page 6 Page 7

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Sustainable Community Livelihood DevelopmentThis newsletter is about our incredible journey in El Nido, Palawan, Philippines and the completion of our second major project. We decided to do a project that would empower and enrich the lives of the community in Gawad Kalinga, El Nido, while we continue to raise money to build the homes. We believe that in order to break the cycle of poverty we must equip each individual with the ability to provide for themselves, thus we believe in “teaching them how to fish”, which is figuratively what this second project was all about. We partnered with the community to build a seaside co-operative restaurant linked to the construction of seaside cabins to help the community tap into the tourist market and ultimately provide

a constant source of revenue for the families in the community.

The community is inhibited by 24 families who have limited financial means, where mostly just the father of the family works to support the entire family. These men are almost all fishermen and the others are part-time construction workers, who only have a job once in a while. You can imagine how slow the construction business must be on an island!

El Nido is gorgeous! So helping the community build a restaurant that caters to the considerable amount of tourists that flock there every year for the amazing beaches and views is definitely a good idea.

Okay, so let me share with you what happened when we got there.

COOPERATIVERESTAURANT

“Thank you for coming back and helping us with this restaurant” ~ Tita Lea

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PLANNING...

Devising a solution

Sustainable Community Livelihood DevelopmentOur project idea was simple, easy, stress free, or so we thought! We’d built a school in the community already, so we thought it be totally awesome to just show up, surprise the community and see their faces of joy when we tell them about our plan, we learnt that that is not a good idea. Due to the need to make or supplement their income, the community members decided to build stalls and sell whatever they could from island tours to groceries and one family even started a small restaurant. These were absolutely great initiatives, but the position of the stalls was blocking the beautiful view of the ocean and also the restaurant that we proposed to renovate and the new cabins that were being constructed. Sunset Ville, Gawad Kalinga, is located on the beach front. The homes face the ocean and the view is impeccable, however, the commercial stalls were built right next to the road blocking potential tourists’ views of the ocean and the future restaurant.

The first thing we did was hold a community meeting; one of the great things of a small community is that

meetings can be organized in 30 minutes. The members were so excited to see us and were so keen on us renovating the restaurant because it meant that all of the families would have a steady source of income. Since only 6 families had commercial stalls, it would provide the other 18 families with a way of tapping in the tourist market. However, explaining to the community that those 6 stalls were inadvertently blocking the view of one of their biggest natural assets and that they should relocate their stalls, didn’t go as smoothly as we expected. Out of the 6 stalls only 2 were willing to move. We were not prepared for what was to transpire for the next week! We found ourselves smacked right in the middle of a conflict and we were expected to resolve it. We spent over a week in those 4 families homes, talking and have countless cups of coffee in the hot Filipino sun. In that week we realized that having people skills and simply talking to each family to understand their needs and what they wanted was more important than having technical skills or financial resources. And though talking, the community was able to come to a consensus. The stalls were rearranged and the work began!

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THE DRAMA...To shed a bit of light on the situation, here’s one of the dramas that unfolded.. The community had selected the location of each business stall by random number selection. The stalls were being built along the road blocking tourists’ view of the ocean. We proposed that instead of having the stalls parallel to the beach they should be perpendicular and create a business center along the edge of the property, thereby retaining views of the ocean. While 14 locations were raffled off, only 6 families had built. Numbers 1-4, 13, and 14 had been built. Since 12 wasn’t built yet, 13 was in a very desirable location because tourist came to it before 14. With the relocation scheme, 13 would move behind 14 and 13’s owner didn’t want to be the second stall. Her business was renting boats for island hopping tours and renting motorcycles. The family who owned stall number 14, had the same business, except they did not own a boat, even though they sold island hopping tours. Naturally, this made the owner of stall 13 very mad as she suspected that stall 14 was stealing her boat clients and giving them to her friends with boats. Our mission was to figure out how to “expand the pie”. Fortunately, after showing her the future business development strip, she was able to see that her stall would still be visible even if it, wasn’t first, and thank God for Julie’s drawing skills, because visuals were very necessary! The neighbors were also able to come to an arrangement, stall 14 agreed not to sell anything that she didn’t have, so all of the boat tour business could go directly to the boat owners. Stall 13 moved! And construction began!

Moving the stalls

Restaurant construction!

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Launching the Restaurant!The restaurant was launched on our last night in El Nido. The families cooked up a feast and we know the food served at the restaurant will be delicious! I’ve never had a baby but I figure doing project is just like having one. The pain and the lows we had were incomparable to the joy we felt when we saw the community members showing so much gratitude. I think I live for moments like these. Women and children with tears on their faces when they realized that this is their restaurant! Throughout the

night the children, youth, and young adults performed to commemorate the launching of the restaurant. It was

truly an incredible night, full of music, song, dance, and above all joy and community unification. Agape Love has successfully built its first cooperative restaurant. A restaurant that will serve the community, help families send their

children to school, and make sure they don’t go to bed with empty stomachs.

Music & Festivities!

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Oral Hygiene EducationWhile doing the shopping for the restaurant we thought about the kids in the community and we knew that they needed was some oral care. So we bought a bunch of toothbrushes and toothpastes and taught them the most basic things about brushing your teeth.

When we returned to El Nido, we decided to have a couple of hours of teaching oral hygiene. Knowing that we were not dentists, we drew from the simple knowledge we gained from those painful dentists visits we’ve done in life. It was a fun, interactive

lesson with loads of laughter and eagerness to learn. In our lesson we also did practical work, where everyone went

outside to brush their teeth. Some of them were bleeding as it was their first time brushing and

others were just grateful for the change of toothbrush. One of the most amazing things was when one of the women said to us a few days later, “Oh, the kids were lined up brushing their

teeth this morning so you guys could see them”. We missed that moment but the thank yous and

bright smiles kept coming!

Bright Smiles!

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HOMESTAY IN PALAWAN

“Supporting local families”

- Experience the Philippines from a “local” perspective, all just footsteps away from the beach

- For only 500PHP/per night + 100PHP/per meal you can support one of these local families on your upcoming holiday

- Participate in the daily activities of your host family, go on island hopping tours, go jungle trekking, play volleyball, volunteer on a project, work in the gardens... whatever you do, you will see what it really means to be a Filipino!

Live on the beach!

Become part of a family!

Continue reading & plan your homestay!

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Agape Love Foundation is a 1½ year old humanitarian foundation. We are working with a lot of passion and compassion and a strong dedication to be transformational in bringing people out of poverty through education and empowerment. We are so grateful that you have invested in the work that we are doing… the smiles in these pictures are a testament to how a little bit of time and money can go a long way to change people’s lives. So please consider supporting us on a monthly basis so that we can continue to do projects like these. Become a monthly investor today!

Thank you again for partnering with us!

Kind Regards,Khanyisa & JulieCo-founders of Agape Love Foundation

Report authored by,Khanyisa Mnyaka

PASSION & COMPASSION

AGAPE LOVE FOUNDATIONwww.AgapeLoveFoundation.org

VisionTo be transformational in overcoming poverty through education and empowerment

Setup Monthly

Investments! (click here)