...JUST SOME OF OUR NATIONAL PARTNERS

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
1'000 houses for GK June Build



Senator Nene Pimentel
annual PDAF allocation for provinces with GK areas

Senator Kiko Pangilinan
280 houses for GK November Build

National Housing Authority
for the use of public land in GK areas for common facilities, soft loans for the poor and PHP 1 million for the November Build

DOST (Department of Science and Technology) and TESDA
for livelihood skills training and capability-building nationwide

DENR (Department of Natural Resources)
for various seeds during A Time to Plant

...together with many partners in local government and other government agencies in 110 Gawad Kalinga sites throughout the country.

...and beginning this year, the work will spread to other countries like Papua New Guinea and Indonesia and NEXT YEAR to other countries like South Africa and East Timor


Government units continue to jump onto the bandwagon!!

Bukidnon is poised to become the first Gawad Kalinga province, embracing Gawad Kalinga and committing to build 3'300 homes this year.

GAWAD KALINGA IN ILIGAN
Iligan is turning out to be the first Gawad Kalinga city, led by Mayor Quijano, a CFC leader.


GAWAD KALINGA PARTNERS

Towards Slum-Free and Squatter-Free Communities

The GK Shelter Congress was a historical and blessed event and was successful in achieving its goal of bringing together important partners in Shelter! Held at the World Trade Center on June 20,2003, attendees were Dr. Teck Ghee-Lim, Regional Adviser on Poverty Reduction of the United Nations, Secretary Obet Pagdanganan of the Department of Agriculture, Chairman Mike Defensor of the Housing & Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and heads of the various shelter agencies. Commissioner Emmanuel Dalman of the Commission on Audit (COA) , and mayors representing more than 50 municipalities and cities of the country. They were joined by their counterparts -- the GK caretaker teams from Couples for Christ! Not one event in history was able to bring together under one roof such audience, and indeed, it was an event that promised much hope for the future of our country. Shelter is the flagship component of Gawad Kalinga, and it is the hope of GK to give every poor family a decent home. The participation of each individual in that room further enkindles the dream that the problem of poverty CAN be solved. As Antonio Meloto, Executive Director of Gawad Kalinga shared, "Failure of government is failure of society-and we are part of society." Gawad Kalinga is an active response to the problem of poverty that is keeping the Philippines in the Third World. He further enthuses, "Before, we were part of the problem. Now, we are part of the solution."

GK is about us and our future. And this is slowly being realized by the blossoming of many partnerships between GK and local governments. One example is Butuan City Mayor Plaza. She shares, "We have a problem of relocating 6,413 families from Agusan River, and the City Housing Development Office could not solve the problem. I was not convinced of Gawad Kalinga until we visited GK Tangub, Iligan and Cagayan De Oro. Now I can say that there is hope, and nothing is impossible for addressing poverty. Our partnership (with GK) is not only to solve the housing problem but to bring dignity to the Butuan poor."

GK, now a national multi-sectoral effort, is also being recognized by the United Nations as a model for Poverty Reduction in other Third World countries. As Dr. Teck Ghee Lim affirms, "The answer lies in the intangibles to make development work -- good governance, empowerment of the poor, sacrifice and hard work, commitment and stamina, and focus and targeted idealism that is found in Gawad Kalinga. The importance of GK is found in shelter as an entry point to transformation, the poor as social capital, and the rich & comfortable as partners and facilitators." He later on would caution, that "it is important to realize that we are making a commitment."



INTERNATIONAL CONNECTION

We were visited by Dr. Kim Hak-Su, Undersecretary General of the UN and Executive Secretary of UN ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific - 1 of the 5 regional commissions of the UN, and the biggest.) Together with 4 other Undersecretaries, he is the number 2 man in the UN under Kofi Annan. A Korean Catholic, he attended the Christian Life Program (invited by Jun Uriarte, his special assistant). He met with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to discuss various ways by which UNESCAP could collaborate with the Philippines in the area of poverty reduction. He also met 3 VP's of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to seek the bank's support for this important undertaking. He called Gawad Kalinga a remarkable achievement and committed to help expand our work. He is looking at Gawad Kalinga to become a UN model for its global work for poverty reduction. His special representative, Lim Teck Ghee, spent a few weeks late last year in the Philippines to investigate Gawad Kalinga. He was very impressed and in his official report said:

Gawad Kalinga is a very good example of poverty alleviation with much potential for improving the lives of the poor, a remarkable achievement that should be rapidly upscaled, which has the potential to emerge as one of the better, if not the best practices in the area of poverty alleviation and housing for the poor.

In his breakfast forum speech, Dr. Kim Hak-Su highlighted that poverty is the region's greatest challenge. 67% of the world's poor are in Asia and Pacific. 21% of the region's population of 3.8 billion people live on less than $1 per day! Nearly 570 million people do not have access to safe water and over 1.8 billion lack adequate sanitation. Each year, 1 million children die of water-borne diseases. Poverty is not only lack of income and access to basic services. It is also about failure to respond to the voice of the poor. He congratulated the Gawad Kalinga program for building 2'000 houses in 157 Gawad Kalinga sites nationwide and for providing basic needs such as health, education and livelihood - making a difference in the lives of many poor communities. He called Gawad Kalinga a remarkable achievement that used a combination of empowerment approach together with the building up of assets and capabilities of the poor to alleviate poverty. The poor are seen as not beneficiaries, but as people with the potential to change their lives for the better if provided with the opportunity, at the same time stressing the practice of self-reliance among those who are more fortunate. He also extolled the importance of sacrifice and sharing as a means of building up the community and the nation.

[copyright 2003]