When we meet with our beneficiaries, we are frequently greeted with wide smiles, copious thanks, and stories of successes large or small. But on the ground and in the field, there are sad tales to tell, too.
NVC President Millie Kilayko first met Maria Luisa at age 2 in March 2014 when we turned over our 1,000th Peter Project boat to her father, Rolando Pamplona, in Palo, Leyte. Maria Luisa had lost her mother and two-day old sibling to Typhoon Yolanda and was left in the care of her father and four brothers. In the photo above, taken during the boat turnover, she is holding a new toy given by donors from Australia.
This July, Millie followed up on the family’s welfare and learned that Rolando, unlike his fellow fishermen who are now earning well from their Peter Project boats, has not yet been unable to use the banca he received. As part of the beneficiaries’ agreement with NVC, all boat recipients must put in sweat equity in the form of outriggers to be attached to the donated bancas. Other beneficiaries have been able to accomplish this with relative ease, having wives to contribute to the family income or take care of the children, as well as a bit of cash to buy the materials.
Rolando, though, has had to be father and mother to five young children. His neighbors have attested that he is a very good father. Unfortunately, this gives him only enough time in the day to care for his home and children as well as find work to put food on the table the next day without a peso to spare.
Today, our field officer Alyne Batano visited Maria Luisa’s family again. When she arrived at their place around noon time, she found Rolando in tears. Maria Luisa’s grandmother had come to take her and her four-year old brother Van to Butuan, where she can care for them herself. It was heart-wrenching to see Rolando forced to say goodbye to more members of his family.
After posting this story online and sharing it on Facebook, NVC received multiple text and private messages with offers to help. A donor has committed to fund Roland’s outrigger and also added a generous amount for the other family’s needs!
Thanks to this, Alyne was able to take all the kids to the grocery store (their first time ever) to buy household supplies and snacks for school, before Maria Luisa and her brother Van left for Butuan.
Alyne had found out from teachers in the community that a number of school children have nothing to eat during recess, their parents being too poor to send them anything. Too embarrassed to admit this, the kids would sometimes go home and pretend that they had snacks waiting there for them, and simply not come back for the rest of the day.
Because it may be some time till this family may be together again, Alyne brought the family out for lunch during their grocery trip. They ate at Andok’s–the first time any member of the family had ever entered an eating place. It is heartbreaking to see this father so gently helping the daughter he is about to lose, perhaps as his wife would have done if she had not perished in the horrific storm surge created by Typhoon Yolanda.
And now for one last photo of the Pamplona family before Maria Luisa and Van are taken to Butuan. The photograph is taken in the family’s new house provided by a charity organization, a giant leap from the tent they used to live in when we first met. For a few brief moments, joy reigned and the smiles were genuine.
This is not the end of Rolando’s story. Now that he has more time to earn a living and less children to worry about, we hope that he will soon be on his way to taking his Peter Project boat out to sea, earn from its bounty, and make his family whole again. We continue to hope that in the future, we will have a happy ending to share in the story of our 1,000th boat beneficiary.
On April 29, 2015, Rolando Pamplona and his fellow fishermen came back from a day of fishing. They were met by NVC Field Officer Alyne, who bore the bad news of the 7.8-intensity earthquake that had hit Nepal. Recognizing how their own survival and recovery depended on the kindless of strangers from all over the world, they discussed organizing their own fundraising efforts as a way of “paying forward” the help they have received.
When he heard the news, Rolando did not even wait for the fund drive to officially begin. “I’ve had a morning of blessings,” he said, as he stuffed Php20 into a plastic water bottle.
What Rolando know was that his small contribution would snowball into something truly amazing. Other Peter Project beneficiaries followed suit, along with other NVC beneficiaries. Inspired by this, NVC trustees, staff, and friends also donated their share. By May 12, Rolando’s P20 had grown into a fund worth Php74,865.57, which NVC turned over via the Nepal Consultate to the Nepalese community in the Philippines, which had sent its own emergency relief and medical mission back to their homeland. Read the full story here
Since then, Rolando has made it to the front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer…
CNN Philippines…
And was interviewed by CCTV America in a feature of Yolanda survivors paying it forward for Nepal. (And by the way, you’ll see in the video that his boat already has an outrigger!)
May God continue to bless you, Rolando! We are honored to be telling your continuing story.
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