SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: Building a Better Future for Filipino Children

For Filipino parents, the dream is to give their child a better life through education. However, there are limited resources available, especially for those living in far-flung provinces. To bring development closer to communities, there are non-government organizations such as World Vision that tackle issues at the grassroots level, through sponsorships from donors, in partnership with the local government units. World Vision programs, which reach 1.5 million vulnerable Filipino children every year, help ensure that Filipino families and their communities are given a better future through education, health and nutrition, child protection, livelihood, and emergency response.

Breaking the CycleWorld
Vision Development Foundation National Director Rommel V. Fuerte is far too aware of the situation on the ground, as he himself experienced the same obstacles that many students are still facing today because of poverty. “I grew up in Alamada, Cotabato. It’s a really small town. My father was a casual employee of the local government and his employment was on and off. My mother was a public school teacher and most of her income was really just spent on paying off their loans.”

There were five children in the family and he was the eldest, Fuerte says. With money tight, he had to make do with a lot of things, such as recycling his notebooks. He muses, “I would get used notebooks, cut out empty pages and staple them together to make my spelling booklet. I remember thinking that even though my notebook was recycled, at least my spelling was correct.”

There were times when he had to miss classes, because he had SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITYBuilding a Better Future for Filipino ChildrenWorld Vision Development Foundation National Director Rommel V. Fuerte talks about the importance of education and LGU linkages for community progress. BY MAAN D’ASIS PAMARANPHOTOGRAPHY BY ROMEO PERALTA, JR. to look after his younger siblings, and he went to school in slippers that had to last for the whole school year. “Those are life experiences that taught me to really strive hard to graduate. That was why, with my brothers and sisters, we promised to move out of that cycle of poverty. [During my college classes,] I learned that poverty is not fate or a circumstance, but a condition that can and must be changed. This principle resonated with my condition during that time. I realized that we can either get out from that cycle or go around it for the rest of your life.” .....