Partners










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Community Enlivens Bayanihan Spirit

Image
Bayanihan or the outpouring cooperative spirit of Filipinos is traditionally exemplified when communities extend service to those in need without expecting anything in return. This is vividly captured in simple acts like lending a hand to someone carrying a heavy load,  helping an elderly cross the street or extending material or financial assistance to families affected by catastrophic events or disasters.  Even typhoon Yolanda survivors have their own ways of keeping the Bayanihan tradition alive. Community volunteers usually form part of additional workforce at Pope Francis Village. As members of the construction team, their volunteer service becomes their counterpart for the resettlement project.  Women volunteers assist in hauling of earth filling materials for the ongoing School Building construction. Amidst the sun's blazing heat, these volunteers worked all day as the school building project now gears up for the preparation of second floor slab....
Read more

PFV Community observes a traditional house cleansing ritual

Image
The belief in the supernatural is very prominent in the Filipino culture. Performing some house cleansing rituals come into play when, people are building houses or moving to a new house. Generally people do these to ward off evil spirits and other mystical entities. As a show of respect to traditional practices of Taclobanons, I have documented a seasoned ritual called “Padugo” or offering blood of an animal as a form of sacrifice at Pope Francis Village yesterday. The ritual was performed during the pre-concrete pouring for foundations of the first batch of rowhouse units.. It involves slitting of the throat of three white chickens and dripping the blood to the excavated holes before actual pouring of cement. This was performed by a folk healer who happened to be one of the community members of Pope Francis Village. According to traditional beliefs, this practice of taking the life of a sacrificed animal will prevent the evil forces from taking the life of workers or anyone conne...
Read more

A Peso and a Quantum Leap for the Caterpillars

Image
Pope Francis Village carries the byword of community participation from its inception to site development planning, house designing to actual building of houses. This archetype of participatory approach became more prominent when the 550 families decided to come together, regardless of their varying socio-economic backgrounds and origins to form a unified Homeowners Association. It was further demonstrated during the determination of criteria and process for block and lot assignments of individual families. Some would say, the approach is full of dynamism as members engage themselves in a healthy form of contestation, co-optation or cooperation until they arrive at a consensus with the rest of their block members.   The same approach again served as an overarching backdrop of the recent election of block leaders. In a series of cluster assemblies spearheaded by the social team, community members were asked to craft and level-off on the criteria for choosing their leaders per...
Read more