Gawad Kalinga Information

Gawad Kalinga Presentation to Filipino Association of Beatitudes Parish
April 27, 2007 Beatitudes Parish Church

The Gawad Kalinga Community

Gawad Kalinga does not just include the development of the beneficiary community but also the transformation from a caring to a sharing society, united in the vision of reducing poverty by together building a new nation, one community at a time.

Community of Homeowners

A Gawad Kalinga community is composed of about 60 – 100 families residing in a contiguous area. The critical success factor is the organization and empowerment of the Kapitbahayan Neighborhood Association, where the strong values formation is translated into concrete guidelines for community living, agreed upon and lived out by every member. About thirty (30) families or 30% of the population also provides the “tipping point” – a united and strategic number of members that are strong enough to start a ripple effect of transformation in the larger community. Thus, the model GK community becomes an agent of change in the larger context.

Community of Caretakers

A Gawad Kalinga community is also not complete without a strong community of caretakers – a team of volunteers committed to hand-hold the beneficiary community in their struggle to build their life again. The caretaker team provides the backbone for the work of Gawad Kalinga through their sustained presence in the community and implementation of GK programs.

Community of Volunteers and Partners

Transformation happens not just within the poor community but in the whole society as well. Gawad Kalinga mobilizes partners from government, socio-civic groups, churches and parishes, media, the academe and others to provide volunteer services for the various programs, giving individuals and groups an opportunity to live out the spirit of bayanihan.

FREQUENTLY ASK QUESTIONS

1. What are the criteria for choosing the GK locations?
The residents must be poorest of the poor. Next, there must be a strong volunteer caretaker team that is willing to look after the site for 2 to 5 years until the community is self-reliant. Then, we must be able to resolve any land ownership issues. Finally, we must be able to build homes in a cluster. This is because if we build houses 1 by 1, there is no impact on the community and the influence of the surrounding slum is too powerful to bring about lasting change. If we are building in a slum, we need to build a minimum of 30 to 50 homes. This causes a ripple effect and the impact of the GK site goes beyond its own boundaries.

2. How do you choose the beneficiaries and how much do they pay for their home?They must be poorest of the poor. GK carefully profiles all families to establish this based on income, sources of livelihood, family size, etc. Next, they must be willing to give ‘sweat equity’ or bayanihan, since GK is not a dole out. This means that we ask the poor to pay the value of their home in labor – for each day they work, a Peso value is deducted from the value of the home. Labor is not limited to areas of construction or site development. Mothers can be involved in the other programs, and their services are also given a corresponding value that is deducted from the total value of their home. They do not only build their own house but also their neighbors’ houses, the path walks, school, etc. This heals a lot of relationships in the slums because how can you fight with your neighbor when he built your house? This sweat equity payback also helps build a new culture of sharing and service within the community. In many of the more mature GK communities, residents continue to provide labor and service in construction and GK programs even after they have fully paid for the value of their home. Finally, the residents must be willing to become active members of the Kapitbahayan Neighborhood Association, which we form in each site.

3. Why is the Kapitbahayan Neighborhood Association important?
The Kapitbahayan is the key to ultimate self-reliance of the GK site. All residents join and elect their own president. In a concrete demonstration of servant leadership, the president they elect is the last one to get his house! To complement the meager resources of local government in many of our GK communities, the Kapitbahayan must learn to become responsible for cleanliness, peace and order, conflict resolution, community mobilization for building, etc. Over time, responsibility for running these elements of the community is transferred from the GK caretaker team to the Kapitbahayan and the poor learn true community building and self-reliance.

4. Who owns the land? Land ownership in GK sites depends on how the land is acquired for the GK community.

• Donation from a Private Individual/ Group GK usually encourages private donors to donate their property to the Local Government Unit (LGU) and not to Gawad Kalinga for the following reasons :
  a. GK often does not have the resources and capability to do land development and government funds for these purposes can only be used for government land.b. If the property is owned by the LGU, GK and the residents are exempt from paying real estate taxes because the land remains the property of the LGU.c. Once a donor donates the property to the LGU, GK and the residents immediately enter into a usufruct agreement (normally 25-50 years renewable) that allows the residents free use of the land for GK purposes since they normally do not have the capacity to amortize for it yet.
• Government Relocation Sites
  a. Government provides land for free that they already own/purchased or donated and use it as a relocation site. This is usually under a usufruct agreement with GK and/or the Kapitbahayan Association, not with individual families.b. Government program where they make reasonable monthly payments, usually with a maximum of 25 years (depending on age of beneficiaries). This can be under the Community Mortgage Program (CMP), National Housing Authority (NHA) or a local housing initiative. Once the families complete their payment, they will have individual land titles to their property.
• Private Sale
  a. In very rare occasions, Gawad Kalinga is requested by a group of former squatters that have previously entered into a sale agreement with the landowner. In this case, GK helps build their homes and community, and they pay directly to the landowner for the land. This can either be individually titled or owned communally by the Association.
  GK never builds on land where people are squatting. Instead, we negotiate with the landowner to donate the land or sell it at a reduced cost. If the owner refuses, we look for other land to relocate the residents to. GK’s legal arm makes sure that the land titles are clean and free from claims and encumbrances, before homes are built.Also, Kapitbahayan members sign an agreement with Gawad Kalinga stating that they will not sell or rent out their homes to others. Should they fail to comply, it also states that they grant Gawad Kalinga the right to choose who should become the next homeowner/occupant.
• Who owns the house?The land and house go together. See response to #4.
• Why paint homes with bright colors and landscaped gardens?In GK, we want to teach first world standards of excellence even to the poorest of the poor, so the whole country can rise out of the third world. Painting our homes in ‘colors of hope’ has a deep psychological impact on the poor since every morning when they wake they see that their lives have changed. Restoring dignity and hope, as well as introducing a culture of excellence are the most important steps towards making the poor unpoor.
• What is the relationship between Gawad Kalinga and ANCOP? Gawad Kalinga (or GK) is the name of our community development work in the Philippines and other third world countries. ANCOP is GK’s international partner.
• How do we know that our donations reach the intended recipients? What kind of feedback will we get, how often, and in what form?GK is independently audited in the Philippines and ANCOP is also independently audited in the United States. As ANCOP partners, you will be receiving a description of the village where your sponsored family belongs to and a profile of the family and thank you letter once the homes have been completed. We encourage our partners to visit their adopted community if they are going to the Philippines. We don’t want our partners to feel simply the pain of parting with their money, we want them to feel the joy of giving and seeing the transformation (so that they can be touched and transformed too!).
• How much of my donation reaches the site?When you donate to most organizations, they have to remove their overheads, marketing expenses, etc and so often a much smaller amount is spent on the project than what you donated. In GK ANCOP USA, our overheads are 5% or less. However, when you become a GK Partner, the value of what is done on the site is MORE than the amount you give! This is because your donation is used to buy building materials but we also add to that free labor, free architects and engineers, free site development (usually shouldered by local governments or other partners as counterpart) plus land which is reduced or even donated too. This means that the donation actually results in a home with a value more than three times that amount being given to the poor! That is the only way we are able to build homes for such a small amount.
• What about livelihood? We focus on 7 areas:
  We improve the motivation of the poor through values formation. Often the poor have skills but they just work for a few days then indulge in vices until they run out of money again. When you have no hope for your future and no self respect it is difficult to be self-motivated. We restore that hope and dignity and the productivity of the people naturally increases as a result. In GK Amparo, for example, when GK started 80% of residents were unemployed and the biggest source of income was drug-pushing. Now, more than 80% are fully-employed and there are no drugs in the area.
• We give the residents new skills through training programs. Our Gawad Kabuhayan livelihood teams are putting together training programs in construction, manufacturing, agriculture, driving, care-giving, reflexology and many more.• Food sufficiency. We aim to bring food sufficiency or at least food augmentation to every GK site.• Microfinance. We have a nationwide microfinance program which currently has thousands of beneficiaries. Unlike most microfinance programs, GK’s is INTEREST FREE, following the clear instruction of the bible. We do not believe it is acceptable to charge interest to some of the poorest people on the planet and we have worked hard to find ways of sustaining our programs without charging interest.
• Agriculture. The ultimate solution to the slums in the Philippines lies in the provinces and it will come when people stop moving to Manila and begin to move back to the rural areas. This can only happen when they have land to farm and know how to use it. We have around 40 sites now which are working with the Dept of Agriculture to become model agri-based GK sites, plus our own integrated farming communities.
• Small enterprise. We encourage successful business people (especially CFC) to help start businesses for the benefit of GK homeowners and to mentor them in the running of those businesses. We have some significant successes already, e.g. a chicken retailing business in Batangas which already employs around 70 people.
• We are working with government to try to establish tax-free and rent-free enterprise zones close to some GK sites, e.g. Towerville. We are confident we can attract businesses since we can demonstrate that the areas are no longer dangerous slums and that the people are willing to be trained and have undergone extensive values formation.
  Livelihood will never be as straightforward as building homes and will always be a longer process. However, we recognize that it is needed for this work to be sustainable and we believe we have a comprehensive plan for doing it, borne out by many successes already.
• The health component - apart from sporadic medical missions, what is the vision? Will we set up clinics in each GK area? Most health problems in slums are caused by the slum environment. When we build decent homes and teach the poor how to maintain a clean and healthy environment, more than 50% of the health problems disappear. When the children stop sleeping on mud or under leaky roofs, when they have a water supply and a toilet, they stop getting sick. Also, when the community becomes peaceful, the residents stop fighting and stabbing one another, which also cuts down on the health issues! Medical missions will usually be just a band-aid but when conducted on GK sites, they are far more effective because the environment is healthy. The GK health program or Gawad Kalusugan implements a seven-point agenda, TWIN-RPD: (1) fight Tuberculosis, (2) eliminate Waterborne diseases, (3) complement government’s Immunization program, (4) promote Nutrition, (5) Responsible Parenthood, (6) universal health insurance with PhilHealth, and (7) Dental program.
• Isn’t the GK project really government’s job? YES and NO. Yes, government should do their job and do it better, but they cannot solve the problem of poverty alone, especially in a poor country like the Philippines which does not have funds to provide even basic services. Many of them are actually trying to do better by becoming GK partners and adopting our principles of development. We want to be part of the solution, not the problem. GK acts as a catalyst to spur various sectors of society to wake up and do/give their share. It is not only government’s job to uplift the lives of the poor because nation building involves everyone in the nation!
• Why help the poor in the Philippines and other developing countries when there are poor right here in the America?
  The ‘poor’ in the first world are very different from the poor in the developing world. Poor in the first world have access to social services, welfare payments, etc provided by government, which the poor in developing countries do not. Being poor in the Philippines can be a matter of life or death. Also, a donation to a country like the Philippines will go much further than the same amount of money could help someone in the first world. A donation that may alleviate suffering for only a few months in the west can change a family forever in the third world. We are not saying ignore the poor in your home country, quite the opposite. We strongly support helping the poor in every country. You should be able to do something at home and donate to rebuild countries abroad too, especially the country that you came from.In the Philippines, Gawad Kalinga has already built a credible name and a massive network of volunteers and residents, all coming together for nation building. When you give to Gawad Kalinga in the Philippines, you contribute to not just making the Philippines better, but you invest in a showcase that can eventually be replicated in the rest of the world. Already, the GK model is now being done in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and very soon, East Timor and South Africa and India.
  
  Be a GK Village Builder!
  Any passionate individual or group could be equipped and trained to become a GK Village Builder.
  
  What does it take to be a GK Village Builder?
  * Passion and deep love for the poor.
  * Provide seed funding for the village (10% of the total village package ).
  * Commit to complete the village funding within six months to a year by advocating to your sphere of influence - i.e. family members, co-workers, friends, neighbors and groups you are a part of (professional, social, religious, health, educational, informal).
  * Obtain necessary training to become an effective presenter for Gawad Kalinga.
  * Attend GK values formation talks and assemblies.
  * Identify other potential GK Village Builders in your sphere of influence.