Across Borders helped build the Kalinga Shelter and elementary school in the Philippines, which provides housing, education and hope to various youth in need, including former sex slaves, children-in-conflict with the law (CICL’s), and out-of-school youth. The Kalinga Shelter project encompasses a delicate inter-connected handful of self-sustaining projects.

The shelter itself houses 55 children, provides work for 30 teachers and staff, and aid to over 100 families. Kalinga’s goat breeding program provides income and operating funds to caretakers. It also encourages older children without a formal education to take pride in learning a viable trade they can use for a lifetime. In addition, the shelter rents approximately 3 acres of riceland, on which they plant palay. The annual harvest yields just under enough to feed the shelter’s children and workers.

Unfortunately, we are saddened to report that Typhoon Juan, the world’s strongest tropical cyclone of 2010, which struck the area in October, has destroyed much of the Kalinga Shelter grounds and subsequently 3-4 months worth of next year’s critical rice harvest. Due to the immediate physical instability of the area, the children were divided into two groups and are living separately in nearby shelters. Provisions remain scarce for over 60 people at both centers. Some of the goats had to be slaughtered for food, which was not only difficult emotionally but also eliminated proceeds coming from the breeding project.

This isn’t the first time a cyclone has destroyed the area. Just last year flood waters washed away 4 months of rice harvest in Barangay Leet – a close village that supplied food to the shelter. Our Philippines international partner, Dr. Roland Santiago, is rallying to build a new shelter for the children on hilly terrain, far from the ongoing dangers of floodwaters.

If you’re interested in helping our friends in the Philippines, please contact us.