Our First Seeds of Hope
Through appreciative inquiry, we worked with various individuals and groups who wished to model our ideas and help us develop them. Here are some small
but meaningful actions our friends have worked on.
Live Food Education in Evacuation Centers
In partnership with Maia Earth Village and Bahay Kalipay, a live food education workshop took place in evacuation centers in Cagayan de Oro for to Hurricane Washi survivors. Relief workers and evacuees were guided on how to prepare green smoothies and understand the importance of live enzymes for nourishment in times of recovery and transition.
School-Led Initiatives
We heard how children made a difference and we shared their stories online.
Because plastic bags were still more convenient to some donations that needed packaging, children from Creative Space School in Pasig through the guidance of school directress Asha Peri, marked each bag with the word "REUSE" requesting its beneficiary to use this bag again instead of disposing it. Instead of the usual canned goods and msg laden noodles, the students packed in mungbeans in folded newspaper and separately packed hygiene products like biodegradable soap and toothbrush in brown paper bags.
Meantime, in another school across the city, students from International School Manila who volunteered in relief efforts were inspired to come up with a community garden led by their teacher Juanita Naidoo after seeing the devastation caused by the typhoon.
Green Releaf Circle Process
Through our volunteers from Mother Earth Foundation, Juan Tama, Ideals Creatives, Peacemakers Circle, Youth for Unity, and Youth Trip, we came up with this guide for volunteer efforts in packaging and donating relief goods for disaster survivors of Hurricane Ketsana (2009), Hurricane Washi (2011), and Hurricane Bopha (2012).
Simple Ecological Waste Management Orientation
We started small with simple steps. One of our partial applications was with relief operations for an interfaith community in Tala Caloocan through The Peacemakers' Circle Foundation for Typhoon Ondoy in 2009. Because relief donations already came packaged in plastics, we engaged the beneficiaries in a small waste segregation orientation and required them to reuse their plastic bags for the next relief operations
