Building sustainability in the Philippines

The Bernasol Educational Foundation has been quite busy with the cleanup of the aftermath of Typhoon Mangkhut. Many villages have experienced extensive damage to their homes and land which makes any progression for the cacao planting almost impossible at this time. So, our focus has been in rebuilding and providing food, shelter, and continued education for the children and financial training for the adults.

The communities have come together to help where they can to help those who were harder hit by the Typhoon. It’s been an amazing journey for the people of the Philippines coming through such a tragedy and we are so blessed that everyone in our villages have survived and are preparing to go forward with the cacao farming that will help them become a self-sustaining community.

The Bernasol Educational Foundation's Philippines team completed a very successful trip last month which your generous donations made possible!  We were very excited to bring hope to the Aeta tribe through the building of a cacao plantation.  This project will create many local jobs and will provide sustainability to the tribe for years to come!

Our team met with the Aeta chiefs and pastors in six different regions and relocation camps throughout the province of Zambales to discuss and see the land set aside for the cacao farms. August is their raining season so we were unable to travel too far in the mountains because of flooding and mudslides. It rained each day we were there which made travel extremely difficult.

The other objective was our Vacation Bible School program for the tribe's children and a conferences for the women. Each day we set out to one of the six regions and conducted a VBS for the children and meet with all the women after VBS to discuss and plan additional sustainable projects such as jewelry making or bags/satchels made from flour and rice sacks. Many women had wonderful ideas and designs and only lacked the initial startup costs to purchase supplies. There are many talented women who have offered their services to teach the other women in their village to make the bags and jewelry.

Over the three weeks, we ministered to and fed over 1,100 children and 300 women throughout the six regions. It was a wonderful mission and we appreciate your continued support of our efforts and invite you to share this opportunity to be lifechangers with your friends and family!  Please stay tuned for more updates.