Rotary D3830/Gawad Kalinga Service Partnership Launched at Villa Paraiso
Some 55 participants composed of SVPs, Club Community Service Directors and GK advocates and volunteers attended the Rotary D3830/Gawad Kalinga Service Partnership launch at Villa Paraiso in Sun Valley, Paranaque on July 4. This is one of the strategic service partnerships advocated by DG Sid Garcia to scale up and maximize the impact of community service projects,
District Chair for GK service partnership, PP Baby Vale of RC Paranque Metro, delivered the invocation and welcomed the participants.
In his brief keynote speech, Gov Sid shared how he and Rtn Fred Menzel started Villa Paraiso GK Village in 2005 for RC Makati. He recalled with pride how the Rotary vision of “giving hope and uplifting lives” is being realized in Villa Paraiso. From just five GK houses in 2005, Villa Paraso has evolved into a community that today is composed of 154 GK houses and a 3-story multipurpose center that cost P1M to build. Funding for this project was donated by RC Makati Rotarians and friends, and foreign matched clubs from Australia, Japan, Bangkok and Taiwan. The water system that delivers piped water to the community was funded by two matching grants amounting to US$48,000 and built in collaboration with Maynilad and the Paranaque City Government. Gov Sid, ended his remarks with his now familiar refrain, “the future of the communities that we serve is in our hands.”
In his presentation, Rtn Fred Menzel, a German national who considers the Philippines as his second home, explained that RC Makati works closely with Gawad Kalinga and the beneficiary community leaders in the planning and implementation of a comprehensive community development plan. This plan covers projects not only in building decent housing but also health care, skills training, clean water, and community organizing and governance. RC Makati maintains a full time nurse and conducts a quarterly medical mission that benefits at least 300 patients. Skills training for eligible beneficiaries are outsourced to Tuloy sa Don Bosco and Monark Foundations. After having served for five years as a volunteer hands-on Project director at Villa Paraiso and visiting the site every week, Fred continues to be enthusiastic and passionate about his work. He said that his purpose was to “inflame” fellow Rotarians and encourage them to adopt a GK community.
The last part of the program was a video presentation by Paranaque GK head Francis Balagtas on GK’s vision of a slum-free Philippines by building 700,000 homes in 7 years. Gawad Kalinga literally means to “give care”. GK is an alternative development model for poverty alleviation. It addresses the root causes of extreme poverty by engaging the poor in a partnership of development by building not just houses but productive communities. Funding for building materials is provided by donors, community organizing is done by GK volunteers, and the beneficiaries contribute the land which they own or acquire on installment over 20-25 years and “sweat equity” to build the houses. GK is not a dole out program but a creative intervention to help the poor help themselves.
Francis concluded by distributing a list of some 30 GK sites in Paranaque and Las Pinas who can benefit from a service partnership with Rotary Clubs.
After a brief merienda break, the Rotarians toured the community of brightly painted GK houses guided by some of the GK beneficiaries who proudly showed the transformation of what once a squatter colony into an emerging productive community that is now rightly called “Villa Paraiso.” For the Rotarians who attended the Rotary/GK service partnership launch, “seeing is believing” – that Rotary is indeed making a difference in uplifting lives.
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