Celebrating Education with Real LIFE
We are happy to announce that ICM’s first kindergarten students have crossed the outstanding milestone of graduating from grade 6! ICM began operating kindergartens in 2006 and now, seven years later, ten tenacious young people have received their elementary school diplomas, many graduating with honors! In the last seven years, ICM’s Jumpstart Kindergartens and subsequent Elementary Scholarship Program has grown from a small handful of students to nearly 5,000 children marching toward academic success.
The Asian Development Bank’s 2005-6 analysis of poverty in the Philippines found that for every 100 children in the Philippines who start grade 1, only 67 finish elementary school. Among the poorest in the country the number falls to 34 who complete elementary school out of every 100 who start grade 1. There is a strong relationship between educational attainment and poverty. With each additional level of schooling reached, the poverty incidence falls. Prioritizing quality elementary education and keeping poor children in school is one way ICM is fighting the strongholds of poverty.
Minori Nagatomo, ICM’s Joint National Director of Education, recently visited Mindanao to meet these students in person. She shared this joyous graduation news with Lynn Nawata, the Executive Director of the non-profit, Real LIFE Foundation. Real LIFE provides high school and college scholarships to underprivileged Filipinos. They immediately saw how ICM’s Kindergarten & Elementary Scholar Program could feed into Real LIFE’s secondary school system and traveled to a remote part of Mindanao to see both programs in action and to explore the possibility of partnership.
- Lynn and Minori with ICM Scholars
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 AREA HIT BY TROPICAL STORM WASHI
Eyewitness; Words and Photos by ICM COO, Helen Turner
Tropical Storm Washi has left a devastating mark on the Northern part of Mindanao, Philippines. The effected areas reached farther north to the city of Dumaguete on the Island of Negros, where one of our bases is located. ICM COO, Helen Turner, was in Dumaguete attending the wedding of an ICM staff member, Lilian, during the Tropical Storm. Helen soon learned of the countless number of ICM staff members who had been affected by the barrage of Typhoon floodwater. “I heard that Lilian’s own home had washed away in the torrential rain. As we drove [to her wedding ceremony] the evidence of what had happened was clear. Mud was everywhere; debris and fallen trees were all over the place…The wedding went on without any issues and I drove back to my hotel that night still not really understanding.”
Lilian's Wedding
The next day, Helen went to see Lilian’s home, “a true scene of total devastation.” It was extremely likely that if Lilian had been in her house instead of at her wedding, she and her younger brother would have been swept away by the rising waters.
The River by Lilian's House
“Their home is unrecognizable, now partially buried by dirt from the river. But Lilian, smiling and bright on the day after her wedding says to me, “don’t worry, it’s just things.’”
The Remains of Lilian's House
The Place Where Her Neighbor's House Used To Be
Helen was accompanied by Pastor Sam Templado, the local Area Head of the ICM Dumaguete Base, who had been receiving phone calls all morning from people asking for help. “Pastor Sam and his family had been cleaning their house since yesterday when the flood waters rose quickly and filled their home knee deep with sludge. They have done an amazing job but…there is a long way to go before it is done.”
Tropical Storm Washi has affected thousands people in Dumaguete and Northern Mindanao and the worst is not over. In poverty stricken areas where food and water are already scarce, natural disasters like this have an even graver effect on the poor. Families, who have lost what little they had previously owned, are now homeless and desperate for aid. Some are still searching for missing family members and friends, while the chaos around them is now their reality.
ICM’s programs help the poorest of the poor who, especially in these times of natural disaster, need long term support. Please consider supporting ICM with a donation today:
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ICM is a registered charity in Hong Kong, the United Sates and the UK. Audited financial statements and certificates of tax exemption are available upon request.
A Collaborative Effort to Address Poverty
Submitted by Helen Turner, ICM COO // Photos by Bens King, ICM Graphic Designer
ICM’s Philippine Executive Committee joined Cross International’s Leadership Conference September 6th– 7th at a retreat center in Tagaytay, Philippines. The focus of the conference was to develop collaborative ways to address the complex problem of poverty in the Philippines.
The conference was a great opportunity to learn about what other development organizations are doing in the Philippines and to learn from each other’s successes and experiences in working with the poor. The featured speaker (via videoconference) was Mr. Robert Martin from First Fruits, an organization who give grants to Christian organizations in the developing world.
A special thank you to Cross International and the Center for Community Transformation for hosting such a beneficial conference!
A Day in the Life of ICM Staff: Dolores Gagatam
Story by Lily Talaban, ICM CO, Bacolod
Many Filipinos dream about working abroad in order to provide more for their families. ICM’s Malnourished Children Outreach program leader in Bacolod, Dolores Gagatam, had this very opportunity. She had been working with ICM since 1993, but in 2007 she accepted a job in
Canada. While in Canada, Dolores kept remembering the faces of the poor people she used to help in the Philippines. After three years, she decided to return to the Philippines, confident that she was fulfilling God’s purpose for her life and that He would take care of her family. “My service is my obedience to God.” So Dolores gave up the opportunity that many Filipinos seek in order to achieve her life’s calling.
When Dolores arrived home to the Philippines, she stepped back into her job with ICM and in June 2010 she was appointed to run the New Initiative Program in Bacolod. She now manages the Malnourished Children Outreach Program and it is clear that serving the poor is Dolores’ passion. She says there are not enough hours in the day for everything that she wants to do.
Dolores’ day starts with a prayer, usually with her husband. She cooks breakfast for her family and checks her email before getting ready for work. She attends morning devotions at the ICM base where all the ICM staff gather together to before beginning their day’s work. As manager of the Malnourished Children’s Outreach (MCO), Dolores works with 24 pastors and 333 MCO recipients. She supervises the distribution of the nutrition packs to the pastors for the daily feeding of the malnourished children and oversees the collection of every child’s data, monitoring their weight and height on a regular basis. She visits two feeding centers each day, observes the programs and teaches the volunteers. Twice a week, she gives nutrition training and counsel to the mothers of the recipients and also visits the children in their homes.
Photos by Erin Manfredi, ICM Media Officer
Oftentimes, when she visits a child who is absent from the daily feeding it is because the child is sick. If this is the case, Dolores gives a referral for the mother to take the child to the village clinic or the ICM Clinic. During some visits, Dolores has had to rush more severe cases to the hospital. In all of this, Dolores makes a point to visit the partner pastor to bring them encouragement and to hear feedback about the program.
At the end of every full day, Dolores is often exhausted but sustained by the knowledge that many children will not go to bed hungry. Not once has Dolores regretted her decision to give up the opportunity to live abroad. She considers it a great privilege to serve the poor in her own country.
ICM101: Programs in Action
Over 100 people from 10 different countries joined us in the Philippines for ICM101; a week long introduction course into the heart and soul of International Care Ministries. Participants sat in on classroom lectures where ICM Chairman, David Sutherland, shared ICM’s vision and strategies for changing the face of poverty in the Philippines in the areas we serve. Each ICM101er was trained by local ICM staff on how to teach a lesson from the Health & Livelihood Curriculum. The following day, ICM101ers experienced a day-in-the-life of an ICM staff member, traveling into the slums and rural communities where ICM works, and actually teaching their lesson to recipients.
ICM101 gave participants a chance to see our programs in action, as they interacted with local staff and recipients in the field. By the end of the week, the group had visited several slum communities, the ICM Children’s Shelter, several preschool graduation ceremonies, special medical cases, malnourished childrens’ outreaches and microfinance communities. It was a week to remember.
Photos by Erin Manfredi, ICM Media Officer
The Value of Knowledge
Story by ICM CO Team
Meet Jay Stephen Moses, and his mother, Rodalyn. Jay is a growing nine-month-old boy living in a rural slum community on the outskirts of El Nido Town. A few months ago, he was discovered as malnourished by ICM staff, with an untreated cleft lip & palate. He was soon enrolled as one of ICM’s Special Medical Cases and is now one of over forty children in the region on the list to receive surgery from Operation Smile. Their offer to ICM was “If you can find them, we can fix them”. Since that day ICM staff has been on alert for any children requiring the life changing surgery.
Recently, several ICM staff members, including Executive Director, Julie Turner (pictured below), arranged to visit Moses and Rodalyn to assess his progress. Rodalyn began sharing with them about how her life has changed significantly since ICM began working in El Nido. She now has her own container garden and feeds her family from its produce, no longer having to purchase the expensive imported vegetables from Manila that are sold in town. Now Rodalyn and her husband can save a small portion of the income he makes as a tricycle driver.
The staff encouraged Rodalyn to keep attending her ICM Transform Program Classes. That is when Rodalyn smiled and told them that she actually wasn’t part of the ICM Program. The staff was stunned. How then could she have implemented all of the lessons so keenly?
Rodalyn happily explained that her 55-year-old mother-in-law, Chita, was an active participant in the ICM Program. Every time Chita learned something new, she passed the knowledge on to Rodalyn; the lessons in values, health and livelihood. Because Rodalyn and her husband were living in a small nipa hut and did not have a big yard, Chita taught them how to adapt the farming method by using empty bottles to create a hanging container garden. Now Rodalyn is just as keen about the ICM Program as her mother-in-law.
The vegetables she gleans from her garden have made a noticeable difference in the health of her family, especially little Jay. This change in diet, supplemented with the Kids Against Hunger and Feed My Starving Children nutrition packs and the milk and vitamins provided by ICM, Jay’s health is improving quite rapidly.
As the staff left, there stood Chita, proud and tall, with vegetables in hand, surrounded by her community. Although a recipient herself, she knew the value of the knowledge being given to her in class and had to share the life changing information with those around her.
Photos by Erin Manfredi, ICM Media Officer
