Winners:
A. Program Category
1.Outstanding CSR Project in Arts and Culture
KADTU KAMO!: Lamlifew Village Museum’s Eco-Cultural Tourism Experience (ABS CBN Foundation, Inc.)
In the beautiful province of Sarangani, a group of women converges for collective bead working, child care and quiet talk. As visitors enter their homey space, they are received by calmness and serene energy of these women. Most of all, an enlightening experience about the rich culture of the Blaan Tribe awaits them.
They are called the Lamlifew Village Museum and School of Living Traditions managed by the Lamlifew Tribal Women’s Association (LTWA). It is located in the Sarangani Province, one of the sites of Bantay Kalikasan (BK), the environment arm of the ABS-CBN Lingkod Kapamilya Foundation, Inc. (ALKFI).
What makes Sarangani and Lamlifew stand out among the other sites is its cultural uniqueness and how the indigenous group, particularly women, are so empowered, taking the lead in promoting their rich culture to the world. They are also superb dream weavers, creating a tapestry that showcases their rich culture. The designs they create are formed out of their dreams. The women also play indigenous musical instruments which add to the welcoming vibe of their place.
With these undertakings, Lamlifew Village Museum was recognized by the National Museum of the Philippines as the only community-based living museum managed by an indigenous women group, while School of Living of Traditions (SLT) has been recognized by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) as the best implemented SLT in the country which was conferred during the 2nd School of Living Traditions Summit in 2014.
Despite these recognitions, Lamlifew Village Museum and School of Living Traditions did not have much visitor traffic since its establishment in 2005 by the local government. Blaans once also lacked enough knowledge about their cultural past especially the younger ones.
It can be linked into two major causes – weakening practice of their culture and ethnic discrimination. Elders were the only ones who strictly abided by their rules. It can also be pointed out that the lack of documentation about their ancient beliefs and practices worsened the problem. Most of the tribe’s previous knowledge were shared orally and were commonly unstructured.
It was in 2014 when Bantay Kalikasan started its environmental advocacies by implementing socio and eco-cultural projects to help preserve the tribe’s arts and culture. The interventions also helped provide a sustainable livelihood for the Women of Blaan.
Bantay Kalikasan’s intervention to Lamlifew was never intrusive. No big infrastructure was built, only a small visitor center to welcome the guests and refurbishing the old cafeteria and weaving center. Bantay Kalikasan, since the beginning, respected the culture and practices of Blaan Tribe.
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2. Outstanding CSR Project in Education
Project Liadlaw (Vivant Foundation, Inc.)
Project Liadlaw’s initial goal was to address DepEd’s project of electrifying off-grid schools by using our experience in rooftop solar. We identified Hilotongan Integrated School in Bantayan, Cebu, as the recipient of solar equipment to fulfill 50.05 kWp capacity for full electrification including a
computer laboratory though which they can teach their ICT TVL courses. However, initial studies showed a lack of sustainability in similar project due to donated equipment breaking down due to the local communities being uneducated in the equipment they’d received.
Project Liadlaw’s second component addresses these concerns by taking the existing Senior High School TVL course in Electronic Installation and Maintenance (EIM) and integrating solar technology into the curriculum. A senior high school in the municipality of the electrified off-grid school would have their EIM teachers trained and certified in solar technology in order to teach the new curriculum and receive equipment for both the standard EIM curriculum as well as solar equipment for the new curriculum. In exchange, the teachers and students would periodically inspect, maintain and repair the equipment at Gilotongan, giving them work experience in technology whose demand is increasing and providing technical skills needed by future electricians. A second school was identified in Metro Cebu in order for these skills to be available as Vivant expands our presence in solar rooftop in our home province. This combines the business needs of the corporation with its CSR efforts in its home community.
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3. Outstanding CSR Project in Enterprise Development
Agri-Preneurship Project for Marawi Internally Displaced People (Aboitiz Foundation, Inc.)
This project aims to transform the IDPs into farmer entrepreneurs, enabling them to manage and operate a viable, competitive, and resilient agri-business. The three-year project, implemented in partnership with G o Negosyo and Pilmico Foods Corporation, aims to organize and build the capacities of the IDPs into a farmers association; build their capacities on corn production; establish and expand its corn farm; accelerate farm productivity through essential post-harvest machinery and infrastructure; and establish a steady market through market linkage, quality assurance, and timely delivery of farm produce. Other partners include Jardine Distribution, Inc. and TESDA, Department of Agriculture, and Mindanao State University that also provide relevant technical support on yellow corn production to the farmers of MBA.
After being formally organized, MBA received training sessions and coaching on corn production and entrepreneurship. It was then provided with the standards for the required supply of corn and was accredited by Pilmico as an official yellow corn supplier. This project reports an 80% increase in income to the families directly involved in the planting of corn. Other members who were involved in various activities such as shelling, drying, bagging, and delivery had various levels of income increases. Its first harvest of 28 tons generated for them a revenue of half a million pesos.
By being able to do work and become productive, members of MBA slowly gain back their sense of pride and self-respect. As it expands its production, it is able to generate interest from corn farmers in Balo-i to supply corn to MBA for drying. Eventually, MBA will become a consolidator so that it can also help other farmers of their host municipality. This is also opening doors for Muslim and Christian farmers to work together in this venture. Building on these gains, the Aboitiz Foundation, Pilmico, and Go Negosyo intend to further help the group to attain organizational sustainability and scale up its production taking advantage of available land in Balo-I and significant demand for yellow corn.
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4. Outstanding CSR Project in Environment
BINHI Project (Energy Development Corporation)
The Energy Development Corporation (EDC) is the largest renewable energy company in the country with operations in Ilocos Norte, Nueva Ecija, Bicol Region, Negros Island, Leyte, and North Cotabato. Our project sites are located inside key biodiversity areas with high biodiversity index. These areas are also sites with ironically high poverty index and degraded ecosystems, hence known as biodiversity hotspots.
Before EDC came into these areas, rampant illegal logging and kaingin, or slash-and-burn farming, were common socio-economic pressures to the natural resource driven by the lack of alternative livelihood. With the need to reforest degraded lands and to address the plight of the upland communities surrounding our operations, EDC (then known as PNOC-EDC) organized the communities into associations. These communities were mainly composed of farmers and kaingeros. Their basic source of income was slash-and-burn farming, illegal tree and wildlife poaching, with some of them involved in livestock raising.
Among the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects EDC used to reach its communities and to provide for their needs is the BINHI project. BINHI is the country’s first comprehensive private sector-led reforestation program, which started in 2009. BINHI aims to reforest 10,000 hectares of open forest lands within the geothermal reservation in ten years. It is an innovative approach to planting trees with the goal of: 1) restoring forests and biodiversity; 2) sustaining the health of the watersheds that support the geothermal operations; 3) rescuing vanishing threatened native hardwood tree species that are best species for carbon mitigation; and 4) provision of livelihood to the communities.
As of 2018, BINHI has provided various physical, socio-economic and environmental accomplishments. As of 2018, 96 species of vanishing endangered hardwood trees were identified, collected from the wild, and are currently being propagated by EDC through its Vegetative Material Reproduction (VMR) technology. Moreover, around 9,323 hectares of land within and surrounding EDC project sites has been rehabilitated. This is equivalent to about 6.4 million seedlings planted all over the country in partnership with 109 farmers associations. In terms of socio-economic impacts, a BINHI asset index study conducted by the University of the Philippines Los Baños Foundation Inc. (UPLBFI) in 2017 showed that BINHI beneficiaries have significantly higher human/capital asset than non-BINHI beneficiaries. Because of the capacity developed by farmers under BINHI, they are now confident to link and accept grants from other institutions to sustain their organizational goals and initiatives. More and more our BINHI farmer associations are becoming self-sustaining and establishing their own enterprise. They have also developed sincere and genuine concern for the environment which makes them active stewards of their own forest resources. The case of Baslay Farmers Association (BFA) is just one of the many success stories that can be derived from the BINHI stories. Overall, our BINHI experience shows that, with the right combination of win-win strategies and partnerships, the triple bottom line of environmental, social, and economic transformation is attainable.
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5. Outstanding CSR Project in Health
Ideas Positive (Unilab Foundation, Inc.)
Ideas Positive was founded on the belief that the youth can turn their ideas into positive outcomes. The program is recognized as the Philippines’ premier youth engagement program for health, with over 36,000 youth empowered and 2.2 million Filipinos served in over 250 communities nationwide.
The youth, who comprise 25 percent of the world’s population, are viewed as the leaders of the future. In the Philippines alone, over 40 million youths are part of the untapped pool with the potential to become key partners in policy and programming to support the local and national government. Over the years, Ideas Positive has proven that investing in youth engagement will yield enormous benefits for both the youth and society, particularly in improving the health landscape of the country.
Through a nationwide competition, Ideas Positive enables the youth to transform their communities with their innovative ideas. The program is designed to be youth-centric and aligns with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, enabling the youth to become global citizens and leaders in the process.
On its eighth year, Ideas Positive opened its call for entries from the youth through iSTORYA: Stories of Youth in Action, a series of roadshows nationwide, spearheading discussions among the youth about pressing health issues in their communities and solutions to address them. From over 100 entries received, Ideas Positive identified 16 youth teams to receive seed money and attend a three-day boot camp designed to equip them with project implementation skills. Within six months, the teams collectively transformed 35 communities and engaged over 100,000 youth volunteers.
The outcomes of their projects were highlighted in the Ideas Positive Youth Forum on Public Health, where more than 1,000 youth leaders from the Philippines and Southeast Asia participated. It was lauded as the largest youth gathering for public health in the country, supported by key partner organizations such as UNICEF Philippines, Department of Health, Department of Interior and Local Government, National Youth Commission, Commission on Higher Education, Sun Life Foundation, and OPPO Philippines. The Forum also resulted in the drafting of the first National Youth Declaration for Healthier Communities, adopted by the National Youth Commission, and forwarded to relevant government agencies.
Apart from improving the health status of communities across the country, Ideas Positive has made an impact through every youth enabled, empowered, and inspired to become leaders and agents of change in their communities. The Ideas Positive Alumni Community serves as a network of youth mentors whose collective voice now represents the youth in local health boards of barangays and municipalities. They also serve as speakers and facilitators of youth engagement programs for health in national and global conferences.
B. Collaboration Category
Outstanding CSR Collaboration Project
60 Corporate Foundations for 1 Collaborative Project: A Story of Talaga Elementary School (Knowledge Channel Foundation, Inc.)
The League of Corporate Foundations (LCF) Committee on Education (CommEd) believes that each of the member-foundations portray integral roles in assisting the improvement of the Philippine education system. Separately and collectively, in collaboration with other education partners, LCF CommEd members create and implement programs that address the needs and challenges in the educational conditions of their beneficiaries. Such is the case of their project in Talaga Elementary School, a previously underdeveloped school situated in a remote area in Rizal province.
Talaga Elementary School is accessible through a feeder rough road in the mountainous Brgy. Maybancal, Morong, Rizal. Besides its remote location, it has been dealing with abrupt increases in learner enrollment through the years caused by the relocation of residents into the community. With the high volume of enrollees arriving annually and the influence of other circumstances such as insufficient teaching workforce, lack of school facilities, poor nutritional status of children, and low National Achievement Test (NAT) results, the expansion and improvement of the school’s services are necessary to meet the growing demands of its stakeholders.
The project operated under the premise that with improved stakeholder support from various education sectors and systemic reforms can the school improve its services and better work towards its goals. Given the resources and expertise that LCF CommEd members have, it aimed to provide learning resources, school feeding program, sports training and educational trips for the students, and professional development programs on gardening and teaching for its teachers.
After all the programs have been executed in the school, the school leaders and teachers were consistently invited to the Committee’s Regular Meeting and Brown Bag Session every last Friday of the month to deliver accounts of achievements made by the school. Talaga ES reported many positive changes in their students, teachers, and even their system, which they believe can be directly attributable to the collaboration that they had with the Committee.
Apart from the help that came from LCF CommEd, the school made its own action plans to cope with its own problems. One step at a time, their story proves that when stakeholders come together and efficiently manage resources for a united goal, nothing can go wrong.
League of Corporate Foundations 