Stomachs full and spirits high, children from the pier area of Cebu City ride a bus home after a feeding session organized by the C.U.R.E Foundation. (PHOTO/ FRAULINE MARIA SINSON)
by Frauline Maria A. Sinson
In a city where poverty stares at you in the face every day, what’s a pouch of rice and noodles worth?
A lot if it can feed an urban poor family of five for a day during the Christmas season.
Hundreds waited in linein downtown Cebu City surrounding the Maranatha World Outreach Center in Manalili Street last Friday.
They patiently stood for hours just to receive a pack consisting of two kilos of rice, pouches of tuna, pork and beans, and corned beef; noodles and sachets of cereal drink, powdered milk and Milo.
The annual event called “Happy Birthday Jesus” sends the message that Christmas is particularly important for those with less in life.
The food packs are given to anyone who wishes to receive, said managing director Bar Van Oost.
But he said the family with street smarts fields all its members so that they could each bring home and stretch the food to last for several days.
The need is matched by generosity behind the effort.
The event “Happy Birthday, Jesus” was started by the Maranatha Christian Fellowship some years ago and is continued by its ministry arm, the Club in Unity for Restoration through Empowerment (C.U.R.E.) Foundation.
More than 22,000 kilos of rice were given away this year compared to 18,000 kilos last year.
The foundation targets poverty as the social ill that needs prime attention.
Cebu City is the second largest urban center in the country with street beggars and slums increasing as quickly as malls and condominiums.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, poverty incidence among Filipinos in the first half of 2014 was 25.8 percent and has been increasing over the years.
SATURDAY FEEDING
Aside from the annual Christmas gift-giving event, the foundation oversees the feeding of street children every Saturday at the Maranatha World Outreach Center.
About 400 to 500 children from urban poor sites of Aroma, Escaño, and the Reclamation Are are picked up by Kaoshiung buses and brought to the church in four groups.
For an hour and a half, volunteers of the Simbahang Pambata Ministry wash the children’s faces and hands, feed them, conduct a program with dancing and games, and engage in value formation. The children are also given multivitamins.
Grace Aquino, 24, was one of the kids helped this way. Her family in the pier area was among those badly affected by Typhoon Ruping, the super howler in Nov. 12, 1990 whose 230-kilometer-per-hour winds blew off roofs and smashed houses.
Church members visited every week to give food and basic supplies to families whose houses were destroyed by the storm.
Through the ministry, Aquino, the youngest of 10 children,was able to finish elementary school. One visitor during the feeding program later sponsored her high school education. She went on to college as a working student.
GIVING BACK
Today, Aquino works as a special education teacher in Rancho ni Cristo, a shelter for girls who are victims of Internet pornography, trafficking and sexual abuse.
The C.U.R.E. Foundation opened Rancho ni Cristo on Dec. 4, 2015 in a 3-hectare agricultural land in a northwestern Cebu town. Organizers asked to keep its exact location low key for the protection of the children and workers. So far there are two safe houses and one staff house. Each house can accommodate six to ten children.
Rancho ni Cristo is envisioned as a haven for traumatized children who will receive spiritual counselling and inner healing from the abuse and violence they experienced.
The idea of Rancho ni Cristo came about with the growing concern over trafficking and sexual abuse of girls on the streets and through the Internet.
The 2011 kidnap and murder of 6-year-old pupil Ellah Joy Pique of Minglanilla town, a suspected victim of child pornography, sparked the foundation’s awareness campaign called Mothers Against Child Exploitation (MACE). This led to the creation of Rancho ni Cristo.
The foundation’s long-term plan is to build 10 residences to accommodate at least 100 sexually abused children.
The cost of one safe house is P1.8 million not including expenses for landscaping, road construction, and other requirements, said Van Oost.
“All of our programs are supported by local and foreign donations. The scholarship program, feeding program, benevolence program and ‘Happy Birthday Jesus’ are mostly supported by local donors. Rancho ni Cristo is mostly supported by foreign donors. However, there are some local donors who are a big help,” Van Oost said.
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