PH Sewing Project – This is Zenie sewing a dress in Banga, Aklan Philippines

Sewing Project

As the COVID-19 cases are gradually decreasing in the Town of Banga, Province of Aklan, where our five (5) Sewing Project Women’s  houses are located, they were able to keep pace with the needs of the customers by sewing facemasks, curtains, pillow cases, repairing other garments like dress, some pairs of trousers, and many more.

These Sewing Project Women are all housewives and the amount of money that they earned  from  sewing helps them with their finances somehow. They are very grateful for this opportunity especially that the GFF’s sewing machines are the ones that they are using in sewing those garments and all.

“The Sewing Project Women are enhancing their skills from what they have learnt.”

Vegetable Garden Project – Phase II

PH Vegetable Garden – This is Nene, daughter of Mr. Villanueva, harvesting her healthy squash fresh from their vegetable garden in Banga, Aklan, Philippines

Aiming “Healthy Meals: Healthy Bodies and Minds”

The GFF HELPS Philippines’ Vegetable Garden Project has always been part of the daily lives of the beneficiaries since they the ones taking care and harvesting the vegetables, they are also the one benefiting from it. Aside from their free vegetables from their daily produce, they are also sharing to their neighbors and even selling some of those excess to the local market. Most of our GFF seeds been planted but to continue the process of planting and harvesting, most of our creative and keen farmers got some seeds from the matured fruits like eggplants, okra and squash and they had dried it to have some brand new seeds that would be feasible to use for planting. Those seeds from matured fruits are dried then planted to the areas where the original plants were planted. The soil is still full of nutrients from the previous farming that’s why the plants are still able to bear fruits.

Virtual Tree Planting Activity

“Saving the Planet Earth, one seed at a time”

    The GFF HELPS Philippines Team is inspired with this quotation of environmentalist, Lucy Larcom: “He who plants a tree, plants a hope.” The PH team wants to create an impact to our children who are the present participants in Online Storytelling and Mobile Library Project that they could contribute something in respecting and caring for our planet Earth by doing this small act of planting a tree – a small act but years after this, they will look back into something valuable, since the tree that they had planted when they were small became one of their greatest contribution in our environment, hence our planet Earth. The children were already inspired with the story about trees that we had conducted during ur Online Storytelling Session and that made them motivated to plant a tree. During our Virtual Tree Planting Activity, fifteen (15) children from Banga, Aklan, participated in planting two (2) different kinds of fruit-bearing saplings, i.e., Guyabano. Rambutan and Sugar Apple in their backyard. The children were very happy and proud of themselves while doing the said activity. They continue to take care of their sapling like watering, weeding and putting bamboo sticks to keep it safe from the animals.                                     

Online Storytelling

“Develop civic-mindedness through multimedia tools.”

PH Online Storytelling – The kids enthusiastically participate in the reading of the paragraphs from the story “Kindness to Animals”.

The GFF HELPS Philippines Team continues to provide a quality education through online storytelling with children ages 9-12 from Banga, Aklan, Philippines, every Thursday and Friday. The stories for the whole month of October revolve around the contribution of animals to the mental health of people, especially of the kids. This is concerning the activity that we have for this month. Schools reopened this September, and students are back to modular learning. With the stress brought by self-learning and isolation from peers, students strive while waiting for the face-to-face classes to start. Pets have contributed a lot as a stress reliever and taking care of them as a quick break. Our Online storytelling has been entertaining as kids are fond of animals and enthusiastically participates.

Mobile Library 2021

“Increasing the reach and visibility of fixed libraries.”

Reading is among the many activities that people do to entertain themselves and learn at the same time. During this time of the pandemic, kids are confined at home with limited interaction with their peers. That’s when reading benefits children and can make the days of confinement more bearable.

PH Mobile Library – Stifhany together with the hardworking teachers of Agbanawan Primary School holding the books.

The GFF HELPS Philippines Team continues the collaboration with local schools by facilitating another phase of the Mobile Library Project. We have 90 children who benefitted from this program, and it’s still increasing. Schools have reopened last September, and teachers from each school have started to communicate with us. We prepared the 37 books for all levels and delivered them to Agbanawan Primary School. All the teachers are sending their gratitude to GFF HELPS for the support during this temporary transition of schools to modular learning, and we assured them that this will continue even if the educational system turns back to normal.