Philippines: Pag-Amoma Children's Place

Introduction

PAG-AMOMA is a Visayan word that means "to nurture."

We are a Christian faith-based organization of families committed to a mission for the development of children and families at the margins. This is a lifetime perpetual act of thanksgiving for all that we are and all that we have after surviving life under Martial Law in the Philippines.

Organized in 1984, PAG-AMOMA adheres to interfaith, multi stakeholders, multi pronged development programs with the CHILD as the convergence of all services. We are a DSWD licensed local foundation for children and families.

Our Children's Place is unique compared to other orphanages here in Davao because we are the only ones who are caring for the indigenous children of Davao. All of our children who stay here are coming from the different tribes living in the mountains of Marilog, 27-30 km hike from the city. There are no proper roads to these places.

Pag-Amoma's Core Programs:

1) Children's Nests: home based early childhood care and development support programs for infants to pre-schoolers with working parents; with nurturing caregivers/ teachers for a period of the day, full day or night care

2) Children's Place: a nurturing home for a "lumad" (indigenous) child who is orphaned, abandoned, neglected or victim of a violent home. This is our newest project with 20 children in our care aged under 12 years.

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3) Little Community Playschools: community-based early childhood care and development programs with parents and caregivers. These are located in 4 areas; Maharlika, Ladian, Bagong Silang and Patag, all of which are in Marilog District Davao City. We are helping local para teachers in terms of training, raising food and educational materials to be used and providing minimal subsistence allowances for the para teachers.

4) Networking and Child Dev't Mission Partnerships: nurturing friends and community support groups

5) Filipino Parenting/ Caregiving Support Program: workshops and sessions with parents and caregivers in need of support

Our Dream Programs

1) Mobile Storytelling Program

2) Home Visiting Program

3) Caregivers Exchange Program

Project Manager

Lisa Templado is the Home Management Coordinator. She stays with the children at the Childrens Place, together with two staff. She will communicate with interested volunteers and welcome them to the Childrens Place.

Ludette Badelles is the director of the foundation, whose headquarters are in central Davao city.

Who do we need?

We need volunteers, male or female who have love for children, who can assist us with some of the following activities:

· Fundraising
· Teaching in the community preschools
· Setting up environmentally compatible farming systems in the uplands, including assistance to set up water systems for viullagers when needed.
· Tutoring and helping with the homework needs of children in the Childrens Place
· Assist in kitchen and laundry at the Children's Place.

Accomodation

The volunteers room has an ensuite bathroom and a separate kitchen for volunteers to cook.

Please be aware the the first month's payment includes a $200 donation, which goes towards the orphanage running expenses.

New Blog - 2011

Thanks Valerie for your help with this!

Read more here about our project! (In French and English)

Background

In the early 1980's many of our founders had been political detainess under martial law. They had been involved in relief, justice and peace work with hamlet victims and evacuees. Their experiences were harrowing and often difficult to come to terms with - work included finding missing persons and burying the victims of massacres. In this situation, children of political detainees and church activists and those born in the evacuation centers, were caught in the cross fire. Thier future looked bleak.

However, the visionaries amongst us saw the futility of our sacrifices to change the socio-political system, if our children and all Filipino children would have only exposure to violence that would like-wise develop a culture of violence within them.

It took us three years to start up (1984-87). Two women opted to embrace the mission to work for young children and their families in separate but complementary programmes. One focused on rural children in extremely difficult circumstances of war and poverty - this is PAG-AMOMA and the other programme focused on urban children - which later became known as KAUGMAON (a word meaning "future" in the local dialect). Since then, PAG-AMOMA & KAUGMAON evolved separately in the mission for the development of children in need.

PAG-AMOMA started as a community based early childhood development program (popularly called day care) for preschool children in the uptown community of Mandug in Davao City. Mandug is a valley located northwest of the city, 15 kilometers away from the workplaces of its residents.

PAG-AMOMA was able to start with local mission volunteers with the financial and material support of Austrian Catholics who shared the same mission with us through the Pontifical Mission Society of Austria. Those years were also our baptism of fire. What started as a nurturing day care program for children of working parents, had to cope with evacuations brought forth by the ensuing armed encounters in Mandug and its neighboring upland barangays.

Play-based learning experiences, which was our approach, turned into therapy sessions for children in a war zone at that time. We learned to help children reverse their negative experiences of violence through play and creative arts. However, children’s art activities expressing their emotions during armed encounters and evacuations, caught the ire of paramilitary groups in the area and we were branded as subversives.Despite these accusations, we invited the military to observe how we processed children’s experiences and we were able to assert ourselves and overcome the situation.

During these times, PAG-AMOMA initiated networking and mobilization with various groups to support children’s needs in the evacuation centers. In the summer of 1987, the PAG-AMOMA and KAUGMAON initiators went into further training in early childhood education at the University of the Philippines in Dilliman, Quezon City.

Between 1988 and 1992, we worked in partnership with UNICEF on a pilot programme for Children in Situations of Armed Conflict (CSAC). It was in this period that PAG-AMOMA was able to reach children in situations of armed conflict in 22 rural and upland communities of Davao City and Davao del Sur. We provided direct service programmes on health, nutrition , early childhood education and family life enhancement as a continuation of the interventions in the evacuation centers.

In the 1990's we gained many practical experiences with micro-financing in the local communities. Funding for full time staff in management of these initiatives was provided by the Southern Mindanao Agricultural Programme( SMAP) - a special project of the Department of Agriculture and the European Union. However, with the termination of this funding in the late 1990's, we had to close many of our outreach programmes and we kept a low profile until 2005. Mission based activities continued in Mandag throughout this period though.

Since 2006, we are now in the process of reconnecting to our old mission-in-development partners and developing new frontiers in the development of children and their families. We have veered away from fund driven partnerships but would like to develop the people to people & community to community solidarity network of support .

For even more in-depth details on our history see our website.

Our first volunteer arrived in November 2009. Check out Sandra's photos on Facebook here. Read about her time here.

Read about Soulaiman and Natalia's April 2010 visit.

Read Valerie's blog and the website she created for Pag-Amoma in February 2011 here.

Volunteer Vacancies

2 Volunteers at any time.