News and Features
A Community Plants Together
[March 21, 2007/Cebu City] - Men may make an encampment, but women make a home, and a garden.
Women at the PLDT-Smart Amazing Gawad Kalinga (GK) Village in Barangay Budlaan, Cebu City are looking forward to the first harvest of a vegetable garden in their newly built greenhouse, consisting of pots of tomatoes and string beans.
The project, which will soon be expanded into a large-scale farm where the harvest can be sold commercially, is part of a livelihood program being developed by Smart Communications, Inc. (SMART), the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and the PLDT Foundation in partnership with the residents to help support the community’s needs.
Dionisia Malang, 54, a resident of the PLDT-Smart Amazing GK Village and member of the Productivity Committee, says they are very happy about it. “Malipay kayo mi kay naa mi dumdomon kada adlaw. (We are very happy that we have something to look forward to everyday). ”
Dionisia and her husband Romeo, a taxi driver, were among the first 25 settlers in the GK Village in Budlaan. Floodwaters from their house in Talamban have forced the couple and their son to move to Budlaan.
Today, 50 housing units have been completed. The vegetable garden will augment the residents’ income.
GK Budlaan project director Ondo Lim says that the initial produce from the farm will be for the consumption of the beneficiaries. The harvest will be sold at a low price.
Malang says that they are also very excited when the garden is expanded to support commercial selling. Income from the produce will go directly to the Kapitbahayan, a fund reserve for the village’s 86 families.
“Kung naay masakit o magkinahanglan mi og kuarta para emergency, delis na gyud mi maproblema kay naa na may pundo ang Kapitbahayan (If somebody gets sick or needs financial assistance, it won’t be a problem anymore because we already have the funds from Kapitbahayan),” says Shiela Bayucot, 21, GK resident and core group head for the project.
The vegetable garden is the second livelihood project at the PLDT-Smart Amazing GK Village. In 2006, five residents attended the Bags for Life workshop where they were taught how to weave fashionable baskets and bags from rolled newspaper sheets. They have since passed on the skills to other residents.
The PLDT-Smart Amazing GK Village in Cebu is one of seven villages being built by the PLDT Group and its employee volunteers nationwide. The other communities are located in Baseco Compound, Tondo, Manila; Camp Abubakar, Maguindanao; General Nakar, Quezon; Arevalo, Iloilo City, Iloilo; and Fort Magsaysay, Laur, Nueva Ecija. The seventh village will be put up in Guinsaugon, Southern Leyte.
The Smart Amazing GK Village in General Nakar, Quezon, has been cited as a model GK village for its livelihood program for the community, residents of Brgy. Banglos. They lost their homes and sources of livelihood from the successive typhoons and mudslides in 2004. The fishermen and farmers are now skilled wood art and furniture carvers, using the very wood that rolled down from the mountains and ruined their houses. They are now known as Banglos Sculptors.
“GK is not just about shelter, but about building a better life,” Lim says. @
