IDEAS on How to Elevate Philippine Livelihood

World on Fire

2006-08-06T22:55:00.000+08:00

Ey louie,

I sent you a video, promise me you'll watch it. I'm not exactly sure how something like this can elevate Philippine livelihood, but it sure is a great idea. I first saw it on oprah. Canadian artist Sarah McLachlan worked with director Sophie Muller from Oil Factory to launch her song, "World on Fire" as a music video that would change the world. Muller and her production crew donated their labour to the project, arranging for all the production costs ($150,000) to go to eleven charity projects around the world. The only production expense was $15, the cost of a Sony miniDV tape.

Thanks,
becca :)

source: World on Fire official website

Candy Wrapper Handbags

2006-06-23T19:12:00.000+08:00

We have lots of garbage to recycle. Lots of Filipino fashion designers... but we lack designers who combines creativity and innovation for a cause. tsk tsk tsk...

If they can do it, why can't we?

ECOIST, Founded in 2004, Ecoist develops fashion accessories for the eco-minded individual. Ecoist objective is to merge design with social and environmental consciousness to provide stylish, functional, and durable products that people will love to own. All their products are made from recycled, organic, or earth-friendly materials, and are manufactured through our network of fair trade partnerships around the world.

RAGBAGS iD-L developed Ragbag – a new brand for fashionable products made from recycled plastic bags by deprived people – the rag-pickers –in the slums of Delhi in collaboration with Conserve, a Delhi-based NGO.

-Louie Cale

Mobile Schools

2006-06-14T17:49:00.000+08:00

Mobile School is a Belgian foundation that provides portable schools for street children.

Instead of taking homeless children and placing them in an institutional setting, which often doesn't work, the Mobile School reaches out to children in their own environment. The goal isn't just to teach them basic reading and writing skills, but also to help them learn that they deserve a better life. They're given time to develop self-esteem and slowly prepare themselves for life off the streets, or if that isn't possible, at least make their life on the streets more humane.

The school itself is a small, mobile cart with blackboards and educational materials that slide out to give kids plenty of room to work on writing, drawing, learning to count and tell time.

The organisation, founded by a young Belgian industrial designer, got started in Guatemala and Bolivia in 2000. The concept can easily be adapted to other countries and other circumstances, like working with children in refugee camps.

Mobile School currently has 16 schools trekking around cities in South America, Asia, Africa and Europe, and hopes to continue to expand. Each school is run by local youth workers, who are trained by the Belgian foundation. It's a low budget project, and one that could go far with the help of compassionate sponsors!

Mobile School is already present in the Pihilippines. Click here to visit their site.

source: Springwise

Sponsor-A-Kid online

2006-06-07T22:19:00.000+08:00

Create a Sponsor-A-Kid website that will enable people to sponsor a scholarship for the indigenous kids. The website will be very dynamic and interactive. You can donate via online using credit card payments or wire transfer. You can also choose a kid at your choice and view their profiles. These kids will be screened by committees (like Sta. Teresita Foundation) before uploading it to the site. Once you sponsor a kid, you can get a full profile of your scholar and get monthly updates of the kid's performance in school. In fact, this idea can expand to livelihood as well: donate a cow, carabao, horse, machines, trucks, etc., :)

Hope this simple idea of mine will inspire more Filipinos to start doing something extraordinary in their lives.

This idea is not patented.
You have all the rights to execute it. :)
Just make it fly!!!

Cheers,

Louie Cale
Junior Chamber International - Makati

my idea.

2006-06-03T22:07:00.000+08:00

first, understand the word *livelihood* in the pinoy context and
after that, patronize.

for the sake of simplicity, let's take the NACIDA definition - crafts
and native products and all that. from tissue dispensers to native
slippers. hand bags to dish rags. bottled pinakurat to preserved
pilinuts. the list could be endless.

now the hard part, which is patronizing these products. one way is to
start with what you need. say, vinegar. every time you run out of
this condiment, buy a vinegar produced somewhere in iligan but is
available from your nearest supermarket.

every.

single.

time.

that's the only way you can be called a patron. then move on to other
livelihood products, products that you will really use and not give
as gifts to other people during the holidays. just like with the
vinegar, frequency is key.

i hope this helps.

-Elvin Bueno
Creative Director
TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno

Calling Card Donation

2006-05-31T10:07:00.000+08:00

Start a calling card printing service where you can offer your clients an opportunity to help the poor communities. In every calling card they print, a peso goes to the poor community. The customer can also choose a variety of designs to print on the other side of his calling card to promote the cause. It can just be a simple image of a kid to an old lady laughing with some captions that says, "Thank you for keeping my calling card. In every calling card I gave, a peso goes to this community".

This idea of mine is not patented. You can use it if you like. :)

Louie Cale
Junior Chamber International-Makati

Preventing landslides in the Philippines using waste coconut husks

2006-05-31T02:15:00.000+08:00

In little more than two generations the Philippines has seen nearly all its jungle vanish. With little regard to the future, loggers and squatters have destroyed watersheds. The inevitable result has been landslides sweeping away topsoil. In 1995 agricultural engineer Justino Arboleda started Juboken Enterprise to combat soil erosion. The company makes nets that act as surrogate tree roots by holding loose soils together. Joboken's coconut plantations provide the fibre. The nets are made from waste coconut husks: an eco-friendly solution to a developing eco-disaster. The 'coconets' were rapidly taken up throughout the Philippines, and Arboleda began to develop other uses for the different waste products generated on his coconut farms. These included doormats, stuffing for car seats and mattresses, and fertiliser (made from coconut dust) suitable for organic farms. But the flagship product is still going strong: coconets are now being produced at a rate of 30,000 square metres per month for markets throughout the world. This continuing success has improved the lives of more than 1500 families in the Philippines: each family involved in the project earns an additional income of around US$5 dollars per day. These achievements have been honoured by the President of the Philippines, who in 2004 presented Juboken Enterprise with a special award.

When the World Challenge competition launched in January 2005 nobody anticipated how successful it would become. 457 nominations were received from 77 different countries for a diverse range of projects around the world. From Uganda to the Ukraine, Vanuatu to Zambia nominations came in from right across the globe. Over 122,000 people voted for their favourite project – a staggering amount – proving just how passionate people are about social, environmental and community issues.

After much discussion and deliberation our expert judging panel were able to whittle down the nominations to just 12 projects. A short film on each of the 12 finalists was broadcast on BBC World and showcased in Newsweek. Votes from the public poured in from around the world until the deadline drew to a close and a winner was finally found!

Representatives from the top three projects Coconets, Fat Chance and Reef Rehab were invited to attend the Award Ceremony held in London in November 2005. After a nail-biting wait the winner was finally announced. Coconets, a project from the Philippines called Juboken Enterprises, which develops eco-friendly nets to prevent soil erosion, proved to be the public’s favourite. An ecstatic Coconets collected their award of US $20,000 to help develop their project even further.

Receiving the honour, Justino Arboleda, from Juboken Enterprises, said: “I am thrilled to accept this award. To have won The World Challenge competition is a great honour for us and for our country, and we are very proud to have been recognised over so many other inspiring projects.”

Roxanne Decyk, Director of Corporate Affairs, Shell, said: “Shell is delighted to be involved in The World Challenge. What is remarkable about this competition is the passion and determination of the individuals involved. We would like to congratulate Juboken Enterprises, along with the runners-up and finalists. Without their innovation and drive, The World Challenge would not have been such a success.”

Livelihood Ideas for the Indigenous

2006-05-30T22:42:00.000+08:00

It's my dream someday to help our indigenous Filipinos have their own stable livelihood. I'd like to allot an extra portion of my money to start and fund cooperatives for potential communities. Teach them how to make crafts and I'll buy their finished products for export. They'll make money... I'll make money as well... not bad if you're a businessman. By manufacturing crafts, it will be an option of their livelihood. Feed their families and enrich their culture as well. A simple idea, but it will make a big impact in their community. In the Philippines, there are still a lot of indigenous groups that you can reach out to. All the way from Bukidnon to up North... your choice. You just have to study first their art and culture. This is just one of the ideas that you can duplicate. The more ideas you have, the better. There are also foundations out there (like Sta.Teresita of Miarayon, Inc. and Cartwheel Foundation) where you can course through your money and let them do the rest. Hope you're one Filipino like me who wants to make a difference in his homeland.

...and that service to humanity is the best work of life. --JCI Creed

Louie Cale
Vice President
Junior Chamber International-Makati

Full Belly Project

2006-05-30T22:28:00.000+08:00

Plans for the Filipino Peanut Revolution

Illac Diaz, a Filipino MIT grad student was a team leader who took the sheller back to the Philippines with great success. Illac was successful in enrolling Holcim, one of the Philippines largest cement companies, to support the introduction of the Full Belly shelling technology throughout that country. Full Belly Project will be partnering with Illac Diaz’s organization MyShelter and Holcim to teach local craftsmen how to build these machines. They will be working through the Philippines 10 agricultural schools and Holcim’s three centers for cement instruction.

The Full Belly Project 501(c)(3) is a non-profit organization that designs and delivers simple agricultural machines to people in developing countries around the world.

This project teaches people how to build hand-operated machines with common materials. Our material of choice for sheller parts is concrete because it is inexpensive, widely available, easy to work with and has a very long service life.

We welcome you to our site and hope that you will look around to learn more about us, and how you can help us address the hunger related issues world-wide.

http://www.fullbellyproject.org
http://fullbellyblog.blogspot.com/

All IN

2006-05-30T20:33:00.000+08:00

I’ve realized that my long-term vision is to help in my own small way to serve our country. This is something that I have been actually doing self-study into these past few months. What became a topic of interest has become a passion. It has crystallized in me that the best way for me to contribute to the country is by directly creating jobs, as an entrepreneur.

As such, I’ve decided that for the decades of my life to come, I will be focusing on three areas that I feel will have whatever small ripple I wish to make :

1. Export services – in my simple understanding, if we just rely on businesses that make money circulate within the country, then our country will not develop as fast as it needs to. Thus, I dream of serving foreign markets.

2. Education – there is really a strong need to build skills of Filipino people in order to prepare them more and more for a globalized world. But there should also be more and more a movement to higher-value skills. If one looks at the spectrum of skills now, we’re providing the brunt, low-value work. We can definitely be more world-class. In the future, I dream of having my own school.

3. Empowerment of the poor – our country still has one of the highest incidences of poverty. From a business point-of-view, they’re a huge market, the so-called “bottom-of-the-pyramid”. From a human being’s point-of-view, we just have to help. Areas in the future I want to enter here are related to microfinancing and skills-building.

In a line, I just want to build skills for Filipinos in order for them to compete in a globalized world. Put simply, my burning platform is to create jobs.

Now, this is something I’m not going to achieve overnight, maybe not even in the next several years, if ever at all. The more I know, the more I realize how much I don’t know. But the good thing is that this cause will probably keep me preoccupied for years and years to come. It’s a whole life’s work.

Now, I believe in thinking big, but starting small. Baby steps towards a grand vision. So in the next few months, I’ll just be focusing on three things : 1. Setting up a small business aligned to #1/2, 2. Volunteer Work, and 3. Self-education/self-training.

On # 3, you see, part of being in Life’s Directions is also a sense of self-awareness through discernment. Strengths and weaknesses, the whole shebang. I’ve looked at stuff I’m not good at, stuff I still need to learn, and these are the things I’ve put on my tasklist.

Some stuff that’s there :

- Discover and get guidance from mentors
- Learn to sell, as in the Electrolux knock-on-your door variety. Be a part-time sales agent.
- Teach an elective part-time
- Travel to other countries
- Network like crazy

http://ruizmark.blogspot.com/

-Mark Ruiz