Allowing fathers living by the shorelines to dream once more
Guest post by my friend Millie Kilayko
It will only happen after investments are made into the manufacturing sector and jobs are created.
For someone who lives in the province and sees the vast expanse of countryside, someone who also sees how vast the field of competition for these manufacturing investments is, I could only shrug my shoulders and say to myself, “How long will it take, really? How many years before I see lives of the poor around me changed?”
The logical answer is, “Patience, girl, it will indeed take a long, long time.”
But having met people who earn only P50 ($1.2) daily as fishermen’s helpers, having met mothers who sweep the ground in the hope of finding a few morsels, having met children who eat a mere few spoonfuls of rice paired with salt for viand, can I be patient?
Having met a man who said that he no longer knows how to dream of a future, because he can hardly survive the present, can I be patient?
To me, a man who has ceased to dream, a man who has ceased to even just imagine that life can someday change for the better, is a man who has ceased to be human. To me, to allow a person to continue to live this way, is one of the greatest sins we can commit against another human being.
Can we defy logic just this once so we need not be patient anymore?
The Miracle Begins
A few months ago, a few men in a shoreline barangay in Negros Occidental were gifted with motorized boats. In the past, these men earned an average of P50 ($1.2) a day (if at all) as fishermen’s helpers. These were the people whose families were:
• Eating rice and salt
• Drinking water from discarded tins
• Sleeping under leaking roofs in homes no bigger than a small apartment’s bathroom
Sadly, these were the men who have ceased to dream.
The Miracle Continues
As new fishermen, they began to earn an average of P150 ($3.60) daily. To a graduating student in Metro Manila, P150 daily is no dream to aspire for. But to these new fishermen, this was triple their original income.
Their wives also had an assurance of real meals for their children who could now eat from their father’s catch. This meant being able to save a little for dreams, small they may be.
This meant being able to dream again!
The Miracle Can Continue
And how much is the cost of this dream? Less than P30,000! P28,660 ($697) to be exact.
• P20,000 will go towards the boat for the fishermen
• P8,660 will go towards a nutrition program for the family’s five children (usual size of their families) for six months, until the father’s income catches up and provides them better food.
That is a fraction of one’s earnings from investments in the stock market. That is only P78.52 daily for a year, and that can be converted to easy little daily sacrifices from those who earn substantially well.
Will you allow us to help people dream once more?
Contact us through The Peter Project: (shared from Facebook post of Millie Kilayko, board president of Negrense Volunteers for Change Foundation)
Negrense Volunteers for Change Foundation, Inc. is a non-stock, non-profit organization registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Republic of the Philippines.
It was established by dedicated citizens who believe in creating positive change for the country by harnessing the power of individuals to help effect change in themselves and in their communities.
NVC Foundation also believes in the strength of partnership with government and continually seeks avenues for such alliances.