Last working week

Our work in Calaanan is finished and we have added some more diving holidays in Camiguin. Our friends Uschi and Herbert have flown back to Germany and we will be back in Switzerland on May 14th.

The last house visits have been made for now and more children have been enrolled in the Batulong support program. There were mostly many teenagers who will graduate from 12th grade and are interested in college support. Batulong will support 30 new college students in the next school year, doubling the number of students in higher education! But that's exactly where our help is most needed, because the daily transportation costs to the city already burden a family's budget. Unfortunately, the grades in grades 11 and 12 are no longer very informative for us. The idea is to integrate parts of the study path into these classes, but all academic subjects are missing except for English, and the grades seem to be set too high (often around 90 out of 100) - so the first half of the year will be a probationary period to see if the 18-year-olds can handle the study.

One of the girls who made a public announcement about being raped several times by her step-grandfather when she was 9 years old also attended our orientation for the new college students. She is now in a safe house because she could be in danger until the court hearing.

Mäge and I visited Thata again to discuss with her the details of her anticipated early retirement next year and her pension. Thata is doing much better due to the anti-hormone therapy, and our fear of not seeing her again during our next visit is now much less. So we looked further into the future with her, also financially, because she now has to take these very expensive medications all the time. It was nice to be able to talk to her normally again, as her breathing problems are much less now.

It is not surprising that we stumble over things that are Filipino but could be a problem for Batulong. So our employees together with some parents started a savings and loan project, in which everyone contributes a fixed amount monthly and can then borrow money in an "emergency" - with an interest rate of 10% per month! Although this took place on a private level, Mäge and I expressed our concerns, because the members who had to borrow the most were the poorer ones who were often short of cash. And the "richer" ones would benefit from it at the end of the year. We didn't forbid the project (the money could be stored in our safe), but our two employees also didn't feel comfortable with it in the end and decided to conclude the loan business and maybe convert it into a savings project (which we would welcome).

Employee management continues to occupy us, even now while we are in Camiguin. We try to understand why what we consider to be relatively simple tasks cannot be accomplished - is it dependent on the person, because of the Filipino education system, or because we have not communicated in enough detail? An example: some students want to study nursing or hotel and restaurant management. However, these courses often involve additional costs in addition to the communicated tuition fees (e.g. buying a stethoscope or expensive alcohol for the bartender course). Up until now, we have rejected these fields of study because they exceed our budget, but we want to conduct a new evaluation. So Cherry, our all-rounder, was tasked with going to the college and inquiring about the tuition fees and additional costs for all 4 years (i.e., all 8 semesters). She came back with the information for the 1st semester! The student can see the other costs on their online platform. Several problems seem to come together here: she didn't understand what it was about. She didn't understand exactly what she had to do. She is a typical Filipina in the sense that when a critical question comes from us (why did you only get the information for one semester?), she first doesn't come up with an answer. So we are quite challenged and have to accept to a certain extent that everything takes a little longer in the Philippines (maybe several trips to the city for all the information (we hope not)) and skills that are taken for granted in Switzerland have to be learned here first.

A few years ago, Batulong carried out a project with sewing machines to show women the opportunity to improve the household budget through a side job. Over time, the sewing of doormats shifted to projects done by neighbors at home, and all sewing machines were sold except for our Swiss Bernina. So the Bernina - a donation from Switzerland - remained unused for several years in our center. I cleaned it, oiled it, and otherwise restored it to a good condition, and I actually wanted to give it to the highest bidder (the idea was a Batulong auction), but then our housekeeper showed interest and it turned out that she already had experience with foot powered sewing machines. After a sewing machine lesson, I gladly handed over the device to our loyal housekeeper at a good price that benefits Batulong of course.