WHEN seven millennials decided to set up a nonprofit organization, a consultant warned that they might be perceived as “snot-nosed, spoiled Ateneans,” championing a cause but relying on their affluent parents to finance their initiatives.
Others doubted their commitment. Could they handle such a huge responsibility? With so many years ahead of them, why spend their youth trying to make the world a better place?
Family and friends wondered why they could not just focus on their career first and excel in their own fields.
Two years since Taguyod Bayan Foundation Inc. (TBFI) was set up, the Atenean graduates had shown that, despite their youth, they had the commitment and the will to pursue their goal.
TBFI has so far built with their own hands eight disaster-resilient duplexes for residents of Sara, Iloilo.
Why Iloilo?
James Roman, a TBFI founding member who worked for the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), recalls a wake where the body of a dead child was placed on a dining table because his family was too poor to pay for funeral services, a boy stealing food from a neighbor killed by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan), and families and pets sharing sleeping space.
It was in Tacloban, however, that Roman really felt he was not doing enough to help, given his resources. Seeing how Yolanda devastated Leyte, Roman decided to see where else he could help.
After Christmas and New Year spent in Leyte, Roman, with the help of a DSWD colleague in Panay, found a municipality in Iloilo where Yolanda displaced more than 10,000 families.
As the media and relief organizations focused on Tacloban, many parts of Iloilo were hardly getting any help.
“No one in our group came from Iloilo, no one donated any land to Iloilo and no one invited us to Iloilo. I just looked at the DSWD data and decided it was the province we wanted to help,” Roman says.
About three weeks after Yolanda struck, TBFI members used their own money to go to the municipality of Sara to look for a place to build a new community.
Roman, Stu Balmaceda, Don Agudo, Mico de Guzman, Lanz Salazar, Miguel Gutierrez and Rich Lopa were armed only with a strong desire to bring hope to the town. They had no land to build on and no resources to use.
In Barangay Antonio Yusay, TBFI formally launched itself as a nonprofit organization. TBFI built on land donated by the Yusay family, although residents are not sure if the person after whom the barangay was named is a relative.
The determination to overcome those problems seemed unexpected for a group that initially considered relief work a barkada trip.
But during relief operations conducted by Ateneo de Manila University, the group felt frustrated by the tedious process of organizing assistance for different sites.
To speed up things, TBFI members themselves called up people they knew could help and even hired a delivery truck to bring much needed help fast.
They started to feel they had to do something for a nation besieged by disasters. There was no excuse to remain passive if they could help.
Need for sustainability
After visits to different provinces, TBFI formally transformed into a full-fledged nonprofit organization committed to doing more than just short-term relief operations. It aimed for more sustainable assistance for those in need.
The seven friends did almost everything by themselves, from collecting funds to building duplexes. They decided on building houses that would withstand the many typhoons that ravaged the country every year and displaced many families.
Getting donors for their ambitious project project was tough, considering their group was very new and had no previous experience in social work, except those Ateneo relief missions. But, through perseverance and luck, TBFI was able to raise millions to finance the first phase of its plan.
“We want to continue the good practice of not using our own money so people who want to join us do not have to worry about spending too much. It’s more of trying things together and doing what we can,” Roman says.
With the support of Gawad Kalinga (GK) and Sara’s local government unit, TBFI conducted workshops during the construction period to prepare beneficiaries for their own responsibilities.
To build sustainable homes, members of TBFI had to learn about different fields—engineering, architecture, social work, law, research, even psychology—which none of them studied.
Balmaceda, board chair and a graduate of Interdisciplinary Studies, went on a one-year hiatus after college to oversee the initial phase of the project, particularly the land clearing. He stayed in Sara for one month and got to know the residents.
“I was not really alone. I stayed with our partners. We call our beneficiaries partners. With the sweat equity (scheme) and values formation we (learned) from GK, they (partners) were able to help us build their own community through volunteer work. They (cleared) grasslands with us and helped construction workers, especially the women,” Balmaceda says.
“When the houses were transferred to them, they (partners) kept saying thank you. Everyone was so grateful. But … it was actually a two-way street. They helped us, as much as we helped them…,” Balmaceda says.
During the hand-over ceremony in October, there were no grand speeches. After bread and juice were distributed and people took pictures, beneficiary families moved to their new houses. For TBFI members, the smiles on their faces were their greatest reward.
The families have since started vegetable gardens in their backyards or opened sari-sari stores. Others just put tables and chairs in their backyards the better to enjoy sunsets.
With the success of its initial venture, TBFI hopes to be able to build more houses and provide beneficiaries with disaster-preparedness modules.
The Ateneans hope other millennials will appreciate their work and join their cause.
Teased by friends that they should build their own nation, the TBFI members, their spirits buoyed by the success of their first project, reply, with their usual optimism, “We will eventually get there. We will.”
(To join TBFI, check out the link: https://www.facebook.com/taguyodbayan.)
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