Aeta Boarding House - Sitio Sagpat, San Felipe, Zambales

This all started after visiting a nearby waterfall and hearing that kids sleep on the sand. These students are from Sitio Banawen, a neighborhood in the mountains that entails trekking and river crossing and is not a feasible daily trip. There is an elementary school up in the community, but to get to high school, students will have to move to the field; Lucky for those who has relatives there, but with some who has none, they stay on a vacant shanty on a roadside where kids sleep straight on the sand. I did not ask further how the case is when it rains.

This shanty is built next to the roadside, atop a community drainage. The kids sleep on the sand (right side on the picture) and it is disturbing to realize their heads will lay just a foot away from the edge of the road and atop the drainage.

Now, it will be my 40th birthday next year, and thought it will be a good reminder of the time I have existed on the earth if I can do something worth that time. 

With the help of a fellow Kakampink Architect (based in Shanghai, China) who I worked with during the campaign, he immediately sent me a design with the specs I have mentioned to him. There was also that friend Kristine in Canada, who has for years, been randomly chatting me to check if there are some community projects that needed funding.  

For this project, we are building a 6-10 pax boarding house for Banawen Residents. I have checked with teachers from Banawen, and class sizes are about 10 per grade level. We will look for a land which we can purchase at a reasonable price, so in the future, we will always have the boarding house for the kids and the aeta community up there. 

(Update from Dec 04: Most of the land are rocky and slopes, there is one land with an unfinished house we saw but the asking price was P180,000. However, the house is right next to the high school and it is 300 square meters. We might choose this for its convenience for the kids, and also the land size as the parents of these kids usually sleep sunday night with their kids, as they have to be early in the market during mondays and thursday San Felipe Market days where they sell their goods. In this case, we are setting an additional budget of up to 50K for renovation and completion of the house). 

The materials cost for the project is around P110,000, and expected labor to be at P55,000, and we're setting a budget of P30,000 for a 50sqm land. Total is P185,000.00.

Here is a google sheet link for the cost. Here is also the google drive folder for the rest of the pics/plan

For the interior and furnishing, we have another kakampink friend Sofia who volunteered to do the total furnishing, including the fundraising. It will be heaven's grace if we have someone who can also work on getting them a sattelite based internet service, which will help not just these kids, but the whole community in general.

If you are interested in helping out, please do let us know via www.facebook.com/limbonis/ or shot us a comment/email here.

As of August 08, 2024 We have the house running with currently 4 students. See the fb page Balemahi:

This all started after visiting a nearby waterfall and hearing that kids sleep on the sand. These students are from Sitio Banawen, a neighborhood in the mountains that entails trekking and river crossing and is not a feasible daily trip. There is an elementary school up in the community, but to get to high school, students will have to move to the field; Lucky for those who has relatives there, but with some who has none, they stay on a vacant shanty on a roadside where kids sleep straight on the sand. I did not ask further how the case is when it rains.

This shanty is built next to the roadside, atop a community drainage. The kids sleep on the sand (right side on the picture) and it is disturbing to realize their heads will lay just a foot away from the edge of the road and atop the drainage.

Now, it will be my 40th birthday next year, and thought it will be a good reminder of the time I have existed on the earth if I can do something worth that time. 

With the help of a fellow Kakampink Architect (based in Shanghai, China) who I worked with during the campaign, he immediately sent me a design with the specs I have mentioned to him. There was also that friend Kristine in Canada, who has for years, been randomly chatting me to check if there are some community projects that needed funding.  

For this project, we are building a 6-10 pax boarding house for Banawen Residents. I have checked with teachers from Banawen, and class sizes are about 10 per grade level. We will look for a land which we can purchase at a reasonable price, so in the future, we will always have the boarding house for the kids and the aeta community up there. 

(Update from Dec 04: Most of the land are rocky and slopes, there is one land with an unfinished house we saw but the asking price was P180,000. However, the house is right next to the high school and it is 300 square meters. We might choose this for its convenience for the kids, and also the land size as the parents of these kids usually sleep sunday night with their kids, as they have to be early in the market during mondays and thursday San Felipe Market days where they sell their goods. In this case, we are setting an additional budget of up to 50K for renovation and completion of the house). 

The materials cost for the project is around P110,000, and expected labor to be at P55,000, and we're setting a budget of P30,000 for a 50sqm land. Total is P185,000.00.

Here is a google sheet link for the cost. Here is also the google drive folder for the rest of the pics/plan

For the interior and furnishing, we have another kakampink friend Sofia who volunteered to do the total furnishing, including the fundraising. It will be heaven's grace if we have someone who can also work on getting them a sattelite based internet service, which will help not just these kids, but the whole community in general.

If you are interested in helping out, please do let us know via www.facebook.com/limbonis/ or shot us a comment/email here.

As of August 08, 2024 We have the house running with currently 4 students. See the fb page Balemahi:

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Fundraising for Yaman Pawikan - PAWICARE San Narciso, Zambales

PAWIKAN LAYING EGG season is about to start and we need to build the hatchery very soon (target  date is Sunday 17 Sep 2023). This would have been the 5th year that I try to get involved to the capacity that I can with Pawicare rangers in their effort to sustain the turtle population in our seas. I've always aspired to getting them an uninterrupted funding for their needs annually, though that is yet in the works.

For the several years that they have been operating, there had been releasing joiners who had been looking for memorabilia and I've, for a time, been thinking of how to have a sellable (for their additional funding) craft that is not made by machine, or a blank template that is rather just labelled (such as these corporate promo items).

This past week, I had been crafting sellable-wearable souvenier for YAMAN PAWIKAN  guests and interested donors. As of yesterday, I was able to do a resin mix of ZAMBALES BLACK SAND and crushed leftover TURTLE EGG SHELLS -  (pls see pics and vids). 

Now, we're going to pre-sell the necklaces to come up with the needed funds for the hatchery.

There are 2 variants of the necklace. The flat one pre-sells at P160 and the more realistic 3D is P290. 

To order, please fill in this Pawicare Necklace Order including reference number for your payment. Pls dont forget to add P50 sa shipping to Luzon, P90 for Visayas and Mindanao 

As of 24 September, we started building the hatchery and moved to doing inventory of the equipment and paraphernalia needed to resume the 2023 season. 

Here are the list of items next to source:

10 December 2023

As of this date, we have already hatched and released 5 nests, and right now, I am working on generating funds for their Christmas party on December 28. We are continously selling the necklace, and we have also setup a booth in an event in Liwliwa, Zambales (looking forward to taking the 2 junior rangers to events like this so we can do face to face information dissemination and awareness.

Pawicare is a volunteer organization of fishermen who has realized that as much as we want fish, we need to take part in ensuring that tomorrow, our seas will still have fish. 

Formed in 2010 in Barangay La Paz, San Narciso, Zambales , it is formed by 14 Rangers (12 seniors, and 2 Young Adults). These men are divided into groups and schedules and walks nightly from around 8pm until about 4am along the 9km shoreline of San Narciso. The task is to spot nesting mother turtles and with careful handling, pick and move the eggs to the hatchery where they will be far from being poached, eaten by animals, infected by shore trash, etc.

This nesting season happens during the cold -ber months, and lasts until around February-March. Incubation takes about 50-60 days and so releasings may reach all the way to May. 

See this google sheet of the people who purchased and where allocation went. Some Receipts here.

Follow Pawicare on Facebook

Follow Ian on Facebook and Instagram

 

PAWIKAN LAYING EGG season is about to start and we need to build the hatchery very soon (target  date is Sunday 17 Sep 2023). This would have been the 5th year that I try to get involved to the capacity that I can with Pawicare rangers in their effort to sustain the turtle population in our seas. I've always aspired to getting them an uninterrupted funding for their needs annually, though that is yet in the works.

For the several years that they have been operating, there had been releasing joiners who had been looking for memorabilia and I've, for a time, been thinking of how to have a sellable (for their additional funding) craft that is not made by machine, or a blank template that is rather just labelled (such as these corporate promo items).

This past week, I had been crafting sellable-wearable souvenier for YAMAN PAWIKAN  guests and interested donors. As of yesterday, I was able to do a resin mix of ZAMBALES BLACK SAND and crushed leftover TURTLE EGG SHELLS -  (pls see pics and vids). 

Now, we're going to pre-sell the necklaces to come up with the needed funds for the hatchery.

There are 2 variants of the necklace. The flat one pre-sells at P160 and the more realistic 3D is P290. 

To order, please fill in this Pawicare Necklace Order including reference number for your payment. Pls dont forget to add P50 sa shipping to Luzon, P90 for Visayas and Mindanao 

As of 24 September, we started building the hatchery and moved to doing inventory of the equipment and paraphernalia needed to resume the 2023 season. 

Here are the list of items next to source:

10 December 2023

As of this date, we have already hatched and released 5 nests, and right now, I am working on generating funds for their Christmas party on December 28. We are continously selling the necklace, and we have also setup a booth in an event in Liwliwa, Zambales (looking forward to taking the 2 junior rangers to events like this so we can do face to face information dissemination and awareness.

Pawicare is a volunteer organization of fishermen who has realized that as much as we want fish, we need to take part in ensuring that tomorrow, our seas will still have fish. 

Formed in 2010 in Barangay La Paz, San Narciso, Zambales , it is formed by 14 Rangers (12 seniors, and 2 Young Adults). These men are divided into groups and schedules and walks nightly from around 8pm until about 4am along the 9km shoreline of San Narciso. The task is to spot nesting mother turtles and with careful handling, pick and move the eggs to the hatchery where they will be far from being poached, eaten by animals, infected by shore trash, etc.

This nesting season happens during the cold -ber months, and lasts until around February-March. Incubation takes about 50-60 days and so releasings may reach all the way to May. 

See this google sheet of the people who purchased and where allocation went. Some Receipts here.

Follow Pawicare on Facebook

Follow Ian on Facebook and Instagram

 

Read More »