A little piece of paradise

So to break it all up at the end, Imee and I took a little weekend holiday......

Camiguin island in the distance- volcanoes and beaches- our destination

The place where we stayed..... with Phil and Sue

The Golden Sunset Beach Club and resort

Awesome waterfall- in the rain but the power of it was incredible!


The yummiest dinner I ever cooked- mixed veg, daal, rice and tandoori fish. YUM! Twas good.

Camiguin at sunset

Making our way to the beautiful island of Mantigue

Do you see the desert island paradise in the distance? Eeek! Excitement.

Look at the glorious water.... and the sand..... subhanAllah.

Only a few families left on the island.... fishermen.

I heard a terrible rumour that they are thinking of turning this place into a resort and opening a casino etc. Please God no!

Resting spot

They have Turtles...... but I didn't get to see them!

Beautiful

Just stunning!

I want to go back!!!
Never thought I would be in such a beautiful place. I'm truly blessed Alhumdulillah.

Thank you Phil and Sue and Imee!!

Flood Relief in action

The Distribution Process:



Planning the distribution process



Preparing the car for the relief convoy to Lala



Loading the trucks in the rain- which only got worse!

The rain made us late for the distribution and the poor people had to wait for us in the ..... u guessed it, rain!

Making sure all the paperwork is in order as we go along- it's a detailed process to make sure accountability levels are met.

The distribution begins...

The Volunteers made sure each family got their alloted amount depending on the vouchers they had been given.

Signing the paperwork-
This old lady had queued in the rain with everyone else in order to get the relief alloted to her family.


The queues continued as the whole process took hours- but everyone was so friendly and good natured subhanAllah.

The last lot of families from the area that had been damaged the most receive their relief including pots and pans etc.


It was an incredible effort to have been part of.

Typhoons and Flooding

Whilst I was in Mindanao, I experienced some crazy rain! There was one night when we could hardly fall asleep for the sound of the driving rain on the rooftops and the loud cracks of thunder, at one point we thought the roof might blow off!
There was a lot more rainfall then expected for that time of year and this resulted in some serious flooding in many parts. Houses were destroyed, farms wrecked and families displaced. I had the opporunity through Christian Aid and MuCAARD to help with flood relief wok in one particular area called Lala. We were involved in collecting information regarding the extent of damage, the needs assessment, writing the reports and applying for funds, sourcing the relief, packing and distribution of relief- most of this was done by local volunteers and to help with and observe the whole process was very educational and inspiring.


Packing the goods:


Kitchen/cooking supplies for some of the families that lost everything

Packing dried fish- staple diet

Yes, it looks dodgy but it's all salt, rice, sugar.

Working late into the night- whilst it continued to rain outside

Hopes in a vacuum

MuCAARD is such an amazing organisation and for an organisation which has almost no funds it is still achieving much. It is truly inspirational and that is why I would recommend people donate (visit the website www.mucaard-uk.org). The staff are amazing and many of them work as volunteers and donate al thier spare time to the cause. It is humbling.

This is the area in which RIAP currently work.




And these are the areas in which RIAP would like to work, the villages they would like to reach but haven't as yet due to lack of funds.



Some of these places have had no outside or government help since the conflict in 2008. These are very remote communities which most large NGOs (many of whom have now pulled out of the Philippines as it is not considered low enough on the development ladder) couldn't get to and wouldn't consider getting to due to the security risks but because MuCAARD is local and works through networks on the ground they could do so much if only given the chance. I sat through a meeting with RIAP staff listening to the heartbreaking appeal of one of them as he was so keen to help and so broken by the realisation that he could not and that these people were left without anyone.


One must ask oneself, "What are we doing?"

The sheer gratitude

The people helped by these small grants provided by JRS, whether thee be for skills training, planting vegetable gardens, investing in livestock or starting a small business, are all so very grateful for the little they have and the help they have received. Watching them in their joy, graitude and beauty, you feel ashamed for yourself, for the place you come from- for all the selfishness and depression we fall victim to. It really makes you think and reassess priorities. It also makes you reassess development and the best ways forward. Their happiness is infectious.

Heartbeaking stories

This lady had a very sad and unfortunate story. She was internally displaced due to the conflict back in 2008. She originated from an area far from this village of Buluan where we were assessing projects when we met her. SHe was one fo the few Christians in this predominantly Muslim community and had travelled with her children in the hope of finding a safe place in the uncertainty of the conflict. She did not have a husband and was unable to return home. For three years her and her children had been residing in one room in the home of a relative. 3 years is a long time to live somwhere which is not your own in such uncertainty and it was now giving rise to conflicts within the family. She was so glad to have been given an opportunity to work with the JRS project planting vegetables for the community and for herself. All she really wanted was to be able to have a house of her own for her and her children........
It is heartbreaking to watch a grown woman cry out of desperation and trying to control it in a public forum.

The Jesuits!!

The Jesuit Refugee service (I realise you may not have heard of it but look it up) funds a few of the small scale projects run by RIAP. Whilst I was in Mindanao we had a visit by one of the their project coordinators- a priest, father Bernard- to evaluate the impact of the projects and where they could go from here. I was priveleged to be able to visit projects run in partnerhsip with them. They are small scale but making a huge impact in these remote rural communities that were severely affected by the conflict in August 2008 and many of whom are still IDPs (internally deisplaced people). These communities have received little or no help from other NGOs or the government itself and are in dire need.

We had to stop on the way and check in with the Military outpost to gain their "permission" to carry on and so they knew who we were and where we were going. Safety first!



The Roads to some of the projects were very very bad, we had to take a four wheel drive car but one that would fit us all and that wasn't too low otherwise it wouldn't make it on the terrain. Even then it got stuck and we had to walk the last bit.



The tap was installed by the JRS project as before they had to walk far in order to get water, even at night. There was no running water of the kind we are used to and still isn't.


This village (Bansayan) also wants/needs a school - as JRS is a small scale funder, they have to really evaluate the needs of the community and how to best impact them and work with them on improving their lot. This can often mean helping them meet their needs themselves to a large extent therefore requiring an intelligent social model with minimal funding reliance.

Marawi State University

Marawi Museum

University Buildings



The campus is so big they have their own transport network!



The University Golf course and park


Getting their priorities right- the lake in Marawi has been greatly polluted over the years due to agricultural chemicals and such, fishing is now poor and the water level has decreased- it is an area of great importance for them that needs to be focussed on.

The ARMM - ooooo!

The Armed Regions of Muslim Mindanao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindanao and http://www.muslimmindanao.ph/armm.html) are an area which the British Foreign Office advised me from not entering via email but that is where many of MuCAARDs projects are based and where 3 of it's teams have their headquarters. My first visits into this area were to Balindong- the headquarters of POM- and to Marawi which is actually called the "Islamic City of Marawi" and has majority i.e. like 99% Muslim population. The only Christians being mainly at the university campus which has a large non-local student population.

Marawi

The area where the office is located-











The RIAP Office

A Balindong welcome

MuCAARD, the Muslim Christian Agency for Advocacy Relief and Development (www.mucaard-uk.org or www.mucaard.org), the charity with which I worked is made up of the Secretariat and 4 member teams- POM, RIAP, BISAP and CoSEED.

MuCAARD member team 1- POM in Balindong - offices




Our accommodation for the first night


The team



The Lombayao (the area) Ittihad Coop - Coop shop. Set up by locals with the help of MuCAARD team POM. There is a daycare centre too. At the time they were working on a business plan to sell the local Maranao coffee to larger markets outside of Balindong.


Culture of Peace training

Somie (the trainer in this photo) is often called on by local goverment oficials to help in peace building/conflict situations for his knowledge and experience. He started in Mucaard at the tender age of 19, built on experince and is now a trainer himself.


Training is mixed and calls on local women too, breaking down cultural gender barriers and building stonger communties through it. Mucaard is making real change.



What creates a Culture of Peace?
It begins at the personal level


The 2 Donkeys- Conflict resolution and building a culture of peace and cooperation, all in one simple drawing.


The session was split into groups fro workshop sessions and they were asked towork on different themes. This man (very sweet) and his group had the theme of undertsanding. His diagram represented the lack of equality and understanding. There is no equal share of resources.


He wanted me to relay a message- The bananas represent the resources, the big man=Europe, the small man=Mindanao. Why does Europe have so many resources when it has so many fewer people than the third world? Why are resources not shared? What about Mindanao and the Maranao Muslims? They are kept small, kept from growing whilst the West grows big and strong.