Giving Back to Mother Earth

Giving Back To Mother Earth

By BRYAN B. GARCIA

January 31, 2012, 11:28am

MANILA, Philippines — The fertile soil of the Philippines has always been an asset to its progress and economy. Valuable crops like rice and sugar, or fruits like mango and banana are just some of the products the country produces for local and international markets.

Even families in the rural areas recognize this natural advantage that the country has, growing their own little gardens in their backyards for their supply of organic produce.

Recognizing the importance of more backyard gardens, a youth group in Libertad, Misamis Oriental in Mindanao has been helping communities to start their own gardens for food security purposes.

“The project started with the realization that vegetable gardening can be done easily in a country like the Philippines because we have lots of sunlight which is a much needed ingredient for plants to grow. We realized also that vegetables are sources of good nutrition and rather than buying it (in which case we don’t know if it is laced with killer pesticides) we better grow it in an organic way,” explains Association of Locally Empowered Youth in Northern Mindanao (ALEY-NM) co-founder Ivan Cyril Sayre.

The project called “Improving Food Security among Rural Youths and their Families” aims to rally the youth and their families in the community for the production of organic vegetables and tree seedlings through the use of vermin-composted organic fertilizer.

ALEY-NM trains the youth and their families how to grow vegetables in open spaces around the house. Aside from vegetables, they also train these families to grow tree seedlings in a small nursery and sell the seedlings with the return used again to raise more seedlings for next round of tree planting.

Since the project started, it has significantly changed the lives of the beneficiaries. Sayre says that because of the access to healthy produce, the health and nutrition of these families improved.

“Now, the beneficiaries are able to have access to nutritious vegetables to improve their nutrition and with the excess for sale in the market. There is also the feeling of pride in having their gardens. Improvement in nutrition can also be seen in healthy and energetic conditions of the participants,” he shares.

Because of the project, the group was recently recognized as one of 2011’s Ten Accomplished Youth Organizations or TAYO organized by the TAYO Awards Foundation, Inc. The annual event honors outstand-ing contributions of youth organizations to the country.

A SUSTAINABLE MINDANAO

ALEY-NM was established in 2008 by a Belgian youth volunteer and local youth leaders of Mindanao State University (MSU) practicum students. They worked and stayed in Libertad, Misamis Oriental for nine months and organized core groups aimed at mobilizing the youth to lend their talents to social development initiatives, biodiversity, and culture of peace promotion.

“The vision of the ALEY-NM is to be a model youth organization in Northern Mindanao, willing and able to advance the cause of progress, sustainable development and promote the culture of peace’,” shares 23-year-old Sayre, a BS Community Development graduate of MSU, Marawi City.

The group also pushes for self-reliance among the youth by providing income generating opportunities through farm, non-farm and off-farm livelihood projects, training and networking activities. In this way, they instill pride and dignity among the young people, as well as provide ways to educate the youth either through formal or non-formal means by securing scholarship support, linking with resource providers and expert-pooling. The membership of the ALEY-NM is composed of regular members (local youth associations) and associate members (youth with potential for leadership but are not members of any association). ALEY-NM currently has 230 members.

ALEY-NM’s food security project operates in three municipalities in Misamis Oriental, namely Libertad, Intiao and Manticao.

Another notable project is the “Mindanao Eco-Life Café” which provides the youth access to the internet for the development of their livelihoods.

“We are doing this by partnering with an internet café to provide access to our youths on a regular basis in order to do research on the livelihood of their choice. Basically we guide them in small-scale livelihoods such as the raising of chickens or piglets. We have one pilot café located in Initao Municipality,” Sayre shares.

USEFUL WASTE

The group is not new to TAYO as it is their third time to join the annual search. Their previous project, which they still promote, is called the Ecological Sanitation (Ecosan) toilets. This project involves waste diversion and the recycling of water and nutrients contained in human wastes back into the local environment.

“So we hit the aim of improving nutrition without spending money for it. Making organic fertilizer is easy but it needs tender loving care and we thought of innovating this by incorporating human waste in the fertilizer mix and vermi-composting it,” Sayre explains. The group labeled it SaniFert, short for sanitary fertilizer and this is the first of its kind in the entire world.

For 22-year-old Michael Acera, a working student and a member of ALEY-NM, growing a garden in their own backyard has provided them food on their table and a productive lifestyle.

“The vegetables I grow in my garden provided me with nutritious food everyday and enabled me to be active and participative in class. I also learn a lot from bonding with my companions in the ALEY-NM instead of doing nothing. I am more productive now,” he shares.

Due to the recent devastation by \tropical storm Sendong in Northwestern Mindanao, they plan to bring their project to the cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro, which is near their base area in Misamis.

THE POWER TO CHANGE

Although the group received funds from different organizations such as the Japan Fund for Water, Department of Agriculture Saka Award and the WAND Foundation in Libertad, budget is still a main concern for them.

“One challenge is in the budget especially because we need a small machine that shreds and mix farm waste with the rest of the organic matter or else we have to do it manually which is time consuming. We were able to source this from a local supporter. Another problem we had to surmount is the lack of good garden expert from our locality. We have to read a lot of materials from the internet in order to learn the basics of small-scale gardening,” Sayre relates.

The P50,000 prize money they received from TAYO will be used to purchase needed garden tools such as sprinklers, weeding tools and cultivators as well as more seeds for the gardens.

However, Sayre says that despite the challenges the group go through, they recognize the power of the youth and how a simple project like this can enable change in their community.

“I experienced strength in the knowledge that the youth can and are able to rise up to difficulties if we all work together,” Sayre says.