Gawad Kalinga launches Nation-building summit

ADDRESSING the country's housing backlog, Gawad Kalinga (GK) partners with Bohol Couples for Christ (CFC), local government and national agencies to realize a parcel of that ambitious goal to build 700,000 homes in 7000 communities in 7 years (GK 777).

GK-Bohol with the Provincial Government presents the Nation-building Summit : Presentation of GK on Nation Building today, March 12 at the Harborview of the Bohol Tropics Resort. GK Executive Director Tony Meloto will present GK and Nation building and Southern Leyte governor Rosette Lerias will share her personal experience with the GK in her landslide ravaged part of the province.

Boholanos led by Representatives Edgar Chatto, Roberto Cajes and Eladio Jala will join Governor Erico Aumentado in launching the summit ceremonies. The GK concept is an affirmation that no one is so poor so as to have nothing to give. Here poor citizens realize they can do something to heal strained societal relations of the rich and poor, government and civil society, Christians and Muslims. The ultimate goal is to build not just homes but the nation, organizers said. Started 2003 in 12 experimental sites, the GK success can only be told in the 598 communities with almost 16,000 homes not just houses as an approach to poverty alleviation.

How so?

In the new communities, they also build a Gawad Karunungan to provide as sustainable education program for its young residents. It also has Gawad Kalusugan, for a sustainable health care and medical support program, which enrolls residents for the help. Finally, it has the Gawad Kabuhayan, a community based livelihood support program otherwise packaged in Kapitbahayan, to assure sustainability. Once communities bursting in crimes and domestic trouble, these new relocation sites for the country's poor are now also transforming themselves. Where crimes related to poverty rates high then, GK communities now exist with very negligible crime incidence, peaceful and productive heavens of the poor. The GK 777 is a multi-sectoral joint initiative supported by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, some members of the senate and congress, local leaders, socio-civic organizations, business corporations and schools and international partners.