FACSPS Project with Loving Presence Foundation, Inc.

Surigao, Mindanao, Philippines

In her Greetings to FACSPS on our 20^th Anniversary, Her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines, wrote, “…it is but fitting that your organization has chosen to commemorate this momentous occasion by forging strategic partnerships with various NGO’s that help empower the disabled and women who remain marginalized in society…Through your generous grants, you have touched countless lives and brought forth priceless hope to those who are despondent.”

The Loving Presence Foundation, Inc. (LPFI) is a nonstock, nonprofit, non-governmental, charitable organization founded in 1999 in Bislig, Surigao del Sur, that operates and manages a learning center and attends to the needs of persons with disabilities (PWDs), particularly children and youth, ages 3 – 21 years. The Foundation provides the social environment and opportunities that enable them to develop their innate potentials and become economically reliant.

LPFI holds the Philippine Council for Non-Governmental Certfication as “Donee” Institution”. As such, all donations are deductible from the taxable income of the donors, similar to 501©3 organizations in the USA.

The FACSPS-LPFI joint project, aside from the implementation of specific projects, maintains information data base about the incidence of and responses to persons with disabilities in the economically-depressed Caraga region in Surigao del Sur. The components of the joint project with FACSPS are the following:

• Medical assistance to children with facial deformities (cleft palate/lip and partial blindness) and cataract.

• Operation of a learning center for special children (deaf-mute, blind) conducted at John Bosco school in Bislig, Surigao. The special education program for speech and hearing impaired children and youth, ages 7 - 24 is the first of its kind in the area.

• Skills training and livelihood assistance, managed and operated by PWDs that includes abaca processing (knotting, twining, weaving and dyeing abaca fibers, rope making); woodcraft shop combined with production of assistive devices (prostheses); piggery and poultry farm combined with seedling production; and establishment of electronics repair and computer services shop.

• Community-based Rehabilitation and Livelihood for PWDs in different barangays of Bislig. Volunteers are trained on the basics of physical therapy so that they can assist PWDs

The basic philosophy of the joint FACSPS-LPFI project is to provide services to persons with disabilities, not persons with illness. Those merely with illnesses are referred to the proper health authorities for treatment and assistance. The project attends to illnesses only when these are related to a disability. The project insists on counterpart contribution from the clients however small. It does not engage in doleouts and asks clients and their families to contribute their share to develop a sense of ownership. Basically, the clients are the responsibility of their families and as such effort are asked from families to help along this thrust.

Quarterly narrative and financial reports are submitted on the joint project with LPFI. Audited financial reports utilizing the services of external auditors approved by FACSPS are required at the end of the calendar year. President Rufino Ignacio and wife Marlene visited Surigao, Philippines in August 2002 and met with the Board, staff, workers and volunteers of the LPFI. They met the “project customers”, persons with disabilities at work on the training center, the blind children, the deaf-mute in the classroom, and those being given therapy in their homes. They met with the Governor of the Surigao, the District Governor of the Lions Club, the Mayors, the District Health Officers, and other top officials who were thankful for the monetary assistance of FACSPS that alleviate the welfare of many unfortunate individuals.

Gerard Rikken, a Dutch national and former Dean of the Asian Social Institute in Manila, is the Executive Director of the joint LPFI – FACSPS Project. Gerard works full-time with LPFI in Surigao.