Background
The Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing (MBST) Manila Priory, initiated its relief efforts since the lockdown in March 2020 by providing relief packs containing food and hygiene items to street persons/families, jeepney drivers and walk-in hungry individuals who for the first time in their lives shyly begged for food and water, the latter being daily wage earners and workers of businesses that closed down. Contrary to what was expected, their numbers still keep on swelling even as the community quarantined was eased in June. The per demand relief assistance became a regular feeding activity that was conducted June 2020 – December 2020. Food and water are primarily and regular needs as expressed by the walk-in clients. Although musts during the pandemic, face masks, alcohol and hygiene paraphernalia take the backseat for clients who would often prefer to exchange them more food and water ration, a pitiful and unfortunate signs of knee jerk survival reaction; protective items, however, are still provided when clients have none.
Rationale
To co-exist with the corona virus and hear people’s incessant cry for food is a tremendous challenge that the MBST is determined to face by sustaining the apostolate for the hungry until they become economically active once again and satiate their want for food and water by themselves, MBST’s remaining resources for the feeding activities need external support for them to be sustained. With the rate the COVID 19 transmission is going, and new Delta variant emerges, the Christian call to feed the hungry is all over and the MBST intends to continue heeding the call.
To be able to respond more comprehensibly to the pandemic, the MBST has recently developed a more encompassing concept to showcase an alternative approach which shall fill gaps in existing programs and services, hence the project BREAD which stands for Begetting Relief and Express Assistance for the Deprived offers ways which are more immediate, preventive, participatory and supportive in enhancing capacity building for those who are determined to be economically productive again even during the pandemic which health experts project to continue for quite some time until treatment and/ or vaccines become available.
Objectives
Generally, BREAD aspires to meaningfully contribute to efforts geared towards alleviating the escalating hunger for the poor triggered by COVID 19 pandemic in MBST mission areas in Metro Manila.
Specifically, BREAD aims to facilitate the following:
- Immediate relief from hunger, thirst and risk of infection for the most vulnerable individual/families;
- Raised awareness on COVID 19 pandemic and ways of prevention by the individual, family and community at large;
- Increased community involvement and participation in addressing COVID 19;
- Capitalization assistance for small home-based or community-based income generating projects or enterprise
APPROACHES AND ACTIVITIES TO ACHIEVE OBJECTIVES
All project implementers, clients and project activities will strictly observe and ensure observance and compliance with basic health protocols like hand washing or disinfection, physical distancing, wearing of face masks and documentation for contact tracing. The project shall be implemented for a period of six (6) months to (1) one year.
Relief Assistance
Relief assistance will be provided through the soup kitchen and relief packs.
Soup Kitchen
The ready-to-eat food packs with bottled water will be distributed to walk-in clients, homeless, and locally stranded individuals (LSIs). Meal packs are prepared twice a week and made available through direct distribution for walk-in clients at the St. Scholastica’s Chapel or through mobile food distribution in areas where itinerant homeless frequent.
An average of 100-250 packs a day are made available for distribution.
Relief Packs
Relief packs will contain food, hygiene and personal protective stuff that may last for a week or two depending on the size of the client-family. The packs are intended for families of dislocated jeepney drivers who have lost income when public transportation was prohibited during ECQ.
There are four groups of target clients for the relief packs distribution, each corresponding to a particular route crossing over secondary roads of Manila, Pasay and Makati City. The target 400 jeepney driver will be screened by the project staff and validated from the four groups with respective of the jeepney drivers.
Health Education
Health education will be done through the distribution of comprehensive materials about COVID 19 giving emphasis on how it is transmitted and how it can be prevented through ways that an individual, the family and community can and must do.
Information materials will be in the form of fliers, posters and tarpaulin streamers with eye catching, ingenious and relatable illustrations which will facilitate easy comprehension for the target clients.
Livelihood Assistance
Assisting people to recover from the economic impact of jobs and income loss due to the pandemic is a new challenge for welfare or aid groups. Despite the ambiguity, many are determined to start a little and slow the income generating activity they have in mind but constrained due to absence of capital.
Livelihood assistance will be in the form of combined grant and soft loan. For a cash assistance of a minimum of Php 10,000.000 to a maximum of Php 20,000.00, the qualified client will pledge the amount she/he will return according to preferred scheme within a period of six months to one year. Payments will form capitalization fund for future clients. Applicants will be accepted on a first come-first served basis and will be required to present a business plan, they should be referred by a parish, people’s organization, church-based organization, individual or network partners of the MBST Manila Priory.
Project Personnel
To ensure attainment of the project objectives, the project committee is formed an implementing structures composed of one full time project staff, a social worker, a part tome bookkeeper and project volunteers who will serve as technical support team.
New donors keep on coming and their support in cash and kind complement those of the original batch of donors whose contributions were instrumental in the startup and sustained operations of the BREAD project. The combined resources have greatly helped in sustaining the provision of hot or packed meals and the distribution of relief packs(containing food and hygiene items, clothing and sleeping paraphernalia, face masks/shields)that were undertaken during 24 stationary and39 mobile relief assistance activities enabling the provision of 10,407 meal packs and 5,345 relief packs from July to March 2021.
A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T…
We are grateful to all those who have contributed and expressed intention to support in fully realizing the objectives of the BREAD project. Thank you for your kindness and generosity which have enabled BREAD to alleviate the anguish of the many whose lives have been tremendously changed for the worse not only by the pandemic but also by recent disasters.
For Creative Ways You Can Help
Contact Person
Sr. Contance Tecson, OSB email: srconstance@yahoo.com
Sr. Theodora Bilocura,OSB email: stheodora_bilocura@yahoo.com, spambs2015@gmail.com
For Cash Donations:
Contact Person
Sr. Marianne Razon, OSB email: mavicrazon@yahoo.com , cbsprocurator@yahoo.com
BREAD Finance Officer