Little Kids with Big Hearts
Ava (5) and Isabella (7) raised HK1,000 for poor children in the Philippines by running their own booths in the playground at their apartment building. Isabella ran a nail salon for ladies and a tattoo parlor for boys while Ava baked cookies and made lemonade. Thank you Ava and Isabella for this awesome effort, you are making the world a better place!
Photos courtesy of Maxine Gross
Earthquake rocks Central Visayas
Dear ICM Friends,
Sorry to say that another natural disaster has struck the Philippines and this one also hit ICM’s target provinces. You may have heard in the news that a 6.9 magnitude earthquake shook the central island provinces of the Philippines yesterday morning, triggering landslides. There have been hundreds of aftershocks. At least 43 bodies have already been recovered.
The earthquake was felt throughout many of the ICM target areas, including the areas around Bacolod, Dumaguete and Bohol and many of you have asked about the safety of our staff and programs. The experience was stressful for millions of people on these islands. People evacuated after tsunami warnings were issued. The aftershocks continued for more than a day, and people worried that buildings could collapse at any minute. But we are pleased to tell you that ICM’s staff, project partners and community recipients are safe. It appears that the most serious damage was confined to a few mountain towns. ICM works in thousands of communities, so we are still gathering responses from our communities. So far we have confirmed that church buildings in four of our partner communities were destroyed. And we will be working to help these communities. We feel grateful that most of our communities avoided the most serious damage in this round.
Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers for the poor in our areas. They are grateful for you too.
Dave Sutherland, ICM Chairman
The best gift you can give this Valentine’s Day!
Valentine’s Day is approaching soon. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to give something extra special to the one you love? This exclusive gift package includes an adorable handmade bear, a small box of Lindt milk chocolate placed in a handsewn basket with our very own ICM Valentine’s Day card. This gift package will costs HK$1500 each. These bears come in brown or beige color. Only 60 bears are available so place your orders now!
All proceeds of the ICM Valentine Day’s bear will go to feeding 6 children in our ICM Malnourished Children’s Outreach (MCO) feeding program in the Philippines for four months. Both our bears and baskets have been produced by ICM’s Red Rope Project. Red Rope is a certified co-op for women who have escaped prostitution and provides a wonderful opportunity for these talented women to harness their life skills for a better life.
Also, our ICM Valentine’s Day card can be sold separately at HK$250.
FRONT / BACK
INSIDE
PLACE YOUR ORDERS HERE:
Kennedy School Diaries: Pam Riordan
Pam Riordan is a teacher from HK’s Kennedy School. She recently joined a group of parents and kids on an ICM vision trip to Bacolod, where she participated in building homes for slum residents.
“I didn’t know what to expect but was extremely excited. On day one of visiting the slum, I realized exactly how little these gorgeous people have. I hoped that I would be able to help them, even if only a tiny amount. We cleared rubbish from the site, dug and laid the foundations of the houses, mixed cement, played and chatted with the children in the community, visited the preschool and taught a craft lesson. Visiting the simple family homes of the school children was totally an amazing experience – they all touched my heart and I found it very difficult to wave goodbye as we left the slum on the last day. To see the children with no shoes on, carrying buckets of water and cement, and helping to build the next house in the community was a leaky eye moment for sure. The glimmer of hope and the smiles on these children’s faces totally puts a busy Hong Kong life into perspective.
Pam with the children from the slum community where she built.
“I’ve traveled quite extensively and am not oblivious to communities like these – but to work with a group like ICM who are clearly making a difference to the lives of the poor people in the Philippines was a fulfilling experience that I hope to be a part of again and again in the future. I am already planning my next trip to help with teacher training in the summer and I hope to combine this with shoveling some more cement and helping to build the next house too. Best I crack on with keeping fit – but who would have thought mixing sand, cement, water and gravel could be so satisfying!
Thanks all at ICM who made this trip so fab! Hats off to you all and I look forward to seeing you all again soon!” - Pam Riordan
Hong Kong’s Kennedy School is a long-time supporter of ICM. Students, parents and teachers have partnered with ICM to build houses in the slums, donate school supplies and hundreds of shoes to ICM’s Jumpstart kindergarten students and to host the ICM Choir at their school in Hong Kong. Thank you for your encouragement and support.
Students Stepping Up: Pope John XXIII Regional High School Pledges US$5,000
The ICM Choir’s last performance of the 2011 USA Tour was held at Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta, New Jersey. The Choir’s multimedia performance shared how the children’s individual stories of abandonment, hunger, disease, and displacement have been transformed by the hope of a better future. As they sang their stories, they represented all children throughout the world living in adversity. Their music testified to the power that hope can bring. The students and staff at Pope John XXIII Regional High School responded with extreme generosity, pledging US$5,000 to help change more lives in the Philippines. Their warm welcome to the USA was a very powerful experience for the Choir Kids.
Thank you, Pope John XXIII Regional High School, for walking beside us in the flight against poverty.
The event even received local press coverage! To read the published article CLICK HERE.
Photo by Heather Elliott, ICM Media Officer
Milestone for Red Rope: They’ve become an independent cooperative!
It looked just like any other Christmas Party in the Philippines – women and children playing games, eating sweets and singing songs. But for the women of Red Rope, this was a very meaningful party. This was the first Christmas Party they had ever thrown at their own expense! And second, this month Red Rope was certified by the Philippine government as an independent cooperative!
Red Rope is a handicraft livelihood initiative of ICM. It started in 2006 when ICM-HK hoped to auction a handmade quilt at the 2nd HK ICM Banquet. Twelve ICM recipients, formerly from the Precious Women Ministry (for women leaving prostitution), were commissioned to hand-sew the quilt. It was beautiful and sold for HK$70,000 at the auction!
Now, 6 years later, Red Rope has become a self-supporting livelihood for 22 women, all of whom have been participants in an ICM program. Red Rope’s number one client is ICM, making all ICM’s Jumpstart school uniforms, ICM Teddy Bears and table prizes offered at ICM banquets. Red Rope items are also sold at fairs in Hong Kong and offered for sale by ICM partner NGOs at venues in the USA.
ICM COO, Helen Turner, who was a guest at the Red Rope Christmas party, says, “What an honor it was to be invited. The ladies beamed as they welcomed guests, even paying the taxi fares of those that arrived — for the first time able to give and not just receive. It was a joy to celebrate with them!”
Photos by Heather Elliott, ICM Media Officer
Christmas Celebrations
Three ICM staff members, Annie Tapuz and Laila Natapol from the Bacolod office, and Heather Elliott, from ICM’s HK office, got into the spirit of celebration this Christmas by hosting several celebrations for different groups in Bacolod City. In the Philippines, celebrations are an important part of the culture, creating unity and a sense of community for those who participate. The poor are often excluded due to the cost involved.
The festivities began with a celebration with the ICM Children’s Choir and their families. The Choir first shared their Kennedy Center performance with their parents – for many of them it was the first time they’d seen it and Heather attested, “There was not a dry eye in the room.” Afterwards, out came the food – Heather, Annie and Laila had prepared a traditional holiday feast that consisted of spaghetti, fried chicken, hotdogs with marshmallows, fruit salad & chocolate cake. Next came the individually wrapped care packages for each of the 14 families with enough food for their Christmas dinner.
The celebration continued the next day at the ICM Excel House. The Excel House is home to 18 children cared for by ICM. Heather explained, “Over the last couple of years, the ICM orphanage has been truly blessed by the support of their donors. So this Christmas they wanted to give back to other communities in need. On Christmas Eve, the Excel Children hosted a Christmas party for children living in the surrounding slum communities, where they cooked them a Christmas Eve dinner and handed out an additional 54 care packages to take home.”
Irish, one of the Excel Kids, shared her excitement about the day’s events: “In the morning we went to worship the Lord for giving us life to celebrate his birth and for the love he sacrificed at the cross. We all prayed then exchanged and opened our gifts. Then we ate our first Western-style meal. Everyone was so excited to eat turkey for the very first time! It looked yummy but when Auntie Ness cut it, she found out that it needed more cooking! So we ate it later instead. We did lots of dancing and eating. Everyone had so much fun! We thank God for giving us good health & lots of blessing!”
Photos by Heather Elliott, ICM Media Officer
Fire in Manila stirs Action by ICM Manila Office
Story from Helen Turner; ICM COO
When Wilma shared the news with the ICM Manila Office, they immediately took action. Wilma is ICM Manila’s accounting assistant. A fire had broken out in her neighborhood the night before that overtook 12 buildings and impacted 26 families. While her family was spared, one of her close neighbors didn’t make it.
Left: Four families live in this evacuation center which is actually just a tent; Right: Some families have begun to rebuild with what was left.
For the next two weeks, ICM staff collected produce and school supplies for those families who lost almost everything. On December 13th, ICM staff members Wilma, Arthur, Emily, Lianie and Nepht visited the neighborhood and those affected by the fire to deliver the care packages.
Left: Twelve bags of donated goods were delivered by five ICM Manila Office staff; Right: The families that were affected by the fire.
As advised by the Barangay President, the affected families are still waiting for financial assistance from the Philippine Department of Social Work. The landowner does not have enough funds to rebuild their houses, so the families are unsure of what they will do in the mean time. Some families have started to rebuild with the small amount of resources they had available. Together with the Fire Brigade President, the ICM team was able to share the gift of Christmas giving with those in need.
ICM Celebrating 20 Years of Help, Hope & Change
UPCOMING EVENT: SATURDAY, MARCH 3
We are kicking off the year with a celebration concert on Saturday, March 3rd and we hope you can come. The evening will include a media reflection of the past 20 years and the ICM Children’s Choir will share their Kennedy Center Performance. Kids are invited and welcome. Please come – bring along your friends – this is a great opportunity to introduce others to the effective and efficient work of ICM. We hope you can celebrate with us.
Tickets are HK$250 and you can book them using the form below. Looking forward to seeing you on March 3rd.
Reserve your tickets HERE
Dreams Came True for the ICM Choir!
Dreams came true for the ICM Children’s Choir this past December. The fourteen kids traveled to the USA to perform at the Washington DC ICM Banquet and at multiple other events and venues in D.C. and New Jersey. The goal was to raise awareness of (and support for) ICM’s Philippine work. They left a powerful impression on everyone who saw them. And they had a blast! Their performance at the Kennedy Center was even streamed live to audiences around the world! To watch the Kennedy Center performance, CLICK HERE! Thanks for making this all possible.
Photos by Heather Elliott, ICM Media Officer
