HUGPONG to launch 2013 activity program

Last Friday, February 22nd, Hugpong group members gathered to review last year's activities and plan 2013 program. A dozen organizations, both local and international, joined the meeting: Ikaw-Ako, LEAD Volunteer, Peace Corps, AYAD, Warriors for Peace, OISCA, IPON, Sanaaw, Greenheart Hermitage, Mud House Building, Virlanie Foundation, HOST-NGO. The members discussed the strategy and mission of Hugpong in order to adopt a common and relevant approach. The core values and objectives will be defined and agreed in a mission statement to be approved by all members.

Hugpong is dedicated to promote volunteerism in the Philippines and provide an opportunity to any volunteers' organization to communicate on its projects and activities. Its final goal is to encourage the sharing of skills and experience for a more sustainable and effective intervention. The group is now open to any type of organization, which is active in Negros Island and agrees on Hugpong's mission statement. Religious organizations can also join upon the condition that they respect the religious policy and views of the group and its members. Regular meetings dedicated to plan activities and events will be organized and hosted by each member organization. The members will also vote for their president, secretary and treasurer at the next meeting.

Upcoming events include the Sports Festival in Patag (March 3rd), Glow Fundraiser in Bacolod City (March 8th), Panaad sa Negros Festival in Bacolod City (April 8-14th). Hugpong members will decide on how to best organize their participation into these events. Next meeting of the group will be held on March, 15th.

For more information or to follow Hugpong's activities, check out the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/HugpongVolunteersUnitedForNegros

Mud house building with LEAD Volunteer

LEAD Volunteer (League for Environmental Advocate for sustainable Development) is a local non-governmental organization, which has been founded in the Philippines in 2003. Its mission is to increase the sharing of skills and talents, promote voluntarism toward sustainable ideal community-building projects, and build a regional and international network of volunteers. LEAD Volunteer initiates projects and initiatives, which directly or indirectly aim at preserving the environment.
Their areas of intervention include: youth empowerment (rescue team and campus organization), environmental campaign and development (campus nursery and marine protected areas), community sectoral organizing (fisherfolk and farmer's organizational support), culture and arts (artist and event organizing), agrarian reform (beneficiaries organizational capacity building assistance), mud house projects (promotion and technology transfer), and emergency response capacity building.

Since 2012, LEAD Volunteer has been involved at the Social Development Center (SDC) to support the children at risk in collaboration with Bacolod City and Virlanie Foundation. The organization is currently deploying volunteers to organize weekly music activities (drums) and it has been planned to provide the children with art therapy activities in a near future.

HOST-NGO has been recently considering the opportunity to work closer with LEAD Volunteer and possibly build a long-term partnership to act locally in the Philippines. The objective would be to jointly design and implement community-based projects based on a sustainable and eco-friendly development approach. As part of this future collaboration, HOST-NGO volunteers have recently participated into a mud house building seminar conducted by Ms. Marisol Alquizar, an active member of LEAD Volunteer.

The mud house construction is a particularly great process in terms of sustainability and environmental protection. It only requires simple natural materials: soil digged from the earth, mixed with water and sand, and added up with paddy or hay orany dried fiber or even recycling garbage. Natural resources like cement, rocks, metal from the mountains, and wood from the forests are not to be used. This technology is based on the use of easily renewable resources, which is not altering the ecosystem and the environment in general.

Mud house building also represents an undeniable asset for disadvantaged and or indigenous communities living in rural areas. These houses can be built in a few weeks on a very low investment, and would last fifty or even a hundred years.

Mud house building could definitely be considered as part of a rehabilitation program, within the frame of HOST-NGO's intervention in the Philippines and around the world.

UNILEVER donates hygiene supplies to SDC

The local community of Bacolod City is increasing its involvement to support the most disadvantaged children. We would like to particularly thank UNILEVER corporation for its generous donation of hygiene supplies (soap, shampoo and toothpaste) addressed to the children of the Social Development Center (SDC) in Bacolod City. We would like to take the opportunity to thank the local organization, LEAD Volunteer, who has facilitated the donation process.
Thanks to UNILEVER's support, the SDC will be able to cover the hygiene supply for 50 children on a daily basis over a total duration of two months. We are hoping to maintain this partnership on a longer period of time.

'Hugpong', united volunteers of the Philippines

The Masskara Festival, held every October in Bacolod City, was the opportunity this year to gather volunteers organizations from Bacolod City and the whole provinces of Negros Occidental and Oriental, to organize a collective communication campaign during this nationwide famous festival. The following organizations decided to join the project: Ikaw-Ako (Japan), Peace Corps Volunteers (United States), AYAD (Australia), OISCA (Japan), JICA (Japan), Warriors for Peace (Philippines), Greenheart Hermitage (Philippines), LEAD Volunteer (Philippines), Virlanie Foundation (Philippines/France) and HOST-NGO (France). Thanks to the support of LEAD Volunteer, the newly formed group, named Hugpong (meaning unity and gathering in local dialect), was authorized to set-up a booth on two of the main event locations.

The first gathering of Hugpong was held on Friday, 12^th of October, by a bunch of volunteers wearing common shirts and badges to emphasize on their unity. The strategy of this first location was to show various products and items generated by the organizations via livelihood programs: kamote chips, wallet and bags made of recycled plastic, silk purses, organic coffee, macrame bracelets and belts made by the kids at the SDC, etc. A collection of clothing was also organized to especially benefit the street children passing through the SDC. The volunteers presented their activities and projects via a slideshow presentation and numerous chats with the interested visitors. The afternoon was followed by the festive night events happening all over the city, yet another opportunity to meet the locals.

Upon that first successful meeting, Hugpong gathered for the last and most important week-end of the festival on Lacson street, where the booth was set-up for two nights. The street parade, 'Electric Masskara', organized by the gallery Orange, was one of the vibrant highlights. The crowd was intense and everyone was responding well to the music and street dancing. Hugpong had a few special visitors that week-end: a journalist and a cameraman from GMA Network, a local TV channel, who interviewed the group members. In addition, Hugpong appeared on a morning program of another local TV channel, ABS-CBN. The communication campaign was really successful!

As a good conclusion to this busy and relevant event, a member of Green Hermitage proposed to every Hugpong member to display their products and items in the gallery-coffee shop, Ikon-Café, located downtown. All non-profit organizations were very greatful of this opportunity to generate additional incomes to sustain their activity in the Philippines.

Hugpong project was born:

because we all wish to be actively involved into community life;

because we all believe that building a fair and united world is possible;

because our diversity makes us stronger;

and because unity is the key to sustainability.

Hugpong's objectives are to raise awareness among all members of the society on the collective approach and promote volunteering in Bacolod City and all over the Philippines. You'll always be welcomed to join our action!

Conflict management & prevention with Warriors For Peace

Within the frame of Virlanie's support program put in place at the Social Development Center, a new partnership has been concluded with a local not-for-profit organization, Warriors For Peace Pilipinas. This organization is now involved at the SDC and is proposing weekly aikido sessions for the children at the center.

Warriors For Peace Pilipinas (W4P) is a non-governmental and not-for-profit organization, promoting the use of aikido to approach conflict and help bringing peace between the communities in a positive and constructive manner. Based in the Philippines, W4P develops and executes programs that address the education, practice and network with other groups and individuals interested in exploring alternative and innovative ways of conflict education and peace work. The main objective of W4P is to spread awareness towards a more adept community in dealing with conflict. This approach can be brought by different methods in teaching and integrating aikido and its unique properties in addressing how individuals react to, respond to, work with, and handle problems that might otherwise have negative results.

Aikido, Japanese martial art, means “the way of harmonizing with the universal energy”. Originally,  Morihei Ueshiba developed a martial art which was based on a brutal Japanese art called Budo or Bushido (the way of the samurai). Aikido was then officially established in 1942.
Several principles and virtues are taught by Aikido: humility and gratitude; respect for others; empathy, harmony and cooperation; reconciliation; openness; integrity.
W4P propagates the aikido as a vehicle for understanding and transforming conflict. It works with communities to develop its capacities to constructively approach conflict. It mentors aikidokas to further the aikido approach in conflict transformation and advocates changes in systems and structures toward non-violent means.

W4P has deployed a team of volunteers at the SDC to share its knowledge and skills throughout the teaching of aikido technics to the children. The activity program aims at promoting peace between the children with the use of a non-violent conflict management approach. The aikido practice should help the children to better control their anger and frustrations, while reaching a more balanced emotional state. These weekly sessions will encourage self-expression and individual developpment of each young participant. The volunteers from W4P will not only teach the respect of others and their differences, but also attempt to changing the way of thinking of these children often coming from underpriviledged communities, where violence is frequently displaced.

To conclude, the ultimate objective of this new formed partnership is to inform and educate the children, and also the team members of the SDC, in preventing conflicts usually generated by understanding issues. This should definitely bring a safe and peaceful atmosphere for everyone at the center!

Partnership with the University of Negros Occidental – Recoletos (UNO-R)

Virlanie-Bacolod's team had been discussing with the President of University of Negros Occidental – Recoletos (UNO-R) for a few months already about a possible collaboration with the Social Development Center (SDC). This month of August, it reached a final point with the official signature of a partnership between the representatives of UNO-R and SDC.

The ceremony gathered all relevant stakeholders : University President, Rev. Fr. Emeterio D. Buñao, Dean of Art & Sciences Department, Dr. Nieves H. Pepito, Dean of Engineering Department, Engr. Christopher G. Taclobos, Dean of Criminology Justice Department, Mrs Jasmine Parreño, SDPC Representative, Mr. Lino Z. Sumbillo, University Vice-President, Father Jorge D. Peligro, as well as UCDO Manager, Mrs Mely S. Flores, who facilitated the building of this partnership. Mrs. Flores was indeed the first contact person who has been working along with Virlanie-Bacolod's team until the official conclusion of the collaboration with SDC.

Virlanie Foundation was represented by Mr. Dominique Lemay, Founder President, Mrs Sara Vial and Mr. Ton-Trong Ho, Virlanie-Bacolod Program Managers, and Miss Pauline Maura, Virlanie-Bacolod Human Rights Coordinator. Mrs Gina F. Castro, Head of the SDC, also joined the signature of the Memorandum of Agreement and she will be responsible to ensure the sound implementation of the partnership within the SDC facilities.

The collaboration with UNO-R aims at offering an efficient and continous support at the SDC. The University is indeed committing to provide human resources in various areas: interns specialized in psychology, social work and criminology justice, will help reinforcing the skills and knowledge of the local team of the SDC. In addition, engineering students will offer specific support dedicated to the rehabilitation of the center in order to renovate and upgrade its facilities.

This partnership actually represents the promise of huge benefits for the SDC and its children, and it is definitely the beginning of sustainable and strong collaborative efforts.

Bacolod Community Development Consortium

Last July 25^th, Bacolod City Mayor published the Executive Order n°14-2012, establishing the Bacolod community development consortium for the People-Private-Public Partnership (PPPP). The objectives of the consortium is to increase the cooperation between the public and private sectors, as well as with the civil society, in the development and implementation of infrastructures and services dedicated to the whole community. This comes in line with the PPPP program, which was initiated by the City last March 2011.

On July 30^th, the City called a meeting for all members of the community, who would be interested to participate into the consortium. The Management Board, appointed to represent the consortium members, is currently composed of the City Council (City Mayor and assistant) and other stakeholders from the private sectors. The Board is in charge of coordinating the assigned committees of the consortium: finance and resource management committee, project design and development committee, procurement and inventory committee, monitoring and evaluation committee, community mobilization committee.

The participants had the opportunity to discuss the details related to the sphere of intervention, as well as the administration of the consortium, and join the hereinbefore committees. Numerous actors from the public and private sectors were willing to get involved into this collective initiative: city departments, universities, companies, chambers of commerce, professional groups, media, and also non-governmental organizations, such as Soroptimist International, Lions Club, HOPE Foundation, or Virlanie Foundation, represented by Sara Vial and Ton-Trong Ho (program managers based in Bacolod).

The consortium's role and mission, stated in the Executive Order, were presented to the public. It will be in charge of the design of program and budget proposals, project identification and preparation, and project execution. In the following months, the Management Board will establish the guidelines and protocols of the consortium, and specify the membership conditions and role of its members. The first project run by the consortium will be the Bacolod Youth Home, which implementation shall start within the first quarter of 2013.