Malipai response to a food crisis in the Philippines during extreme lockdown

These expressions of thanks come after an extreme lockdown situation in the Philippines which created a food crisis for many of our students and their families. This led to some student families having no food or fresh drinking water so the call came from the staff that  we had to do something to provide food packs for our students especially those severely affected as they literally had no food and in some cases no fresh water and no money to buy any.

So we quickly put together food packs. We asked the businesses who had received business loans from Malipai to supply us with vegetables, eggs, rice and other staples, these businesses are in the local area and we had given them enterprise development loans to start these small food businesses to help them create an income for themselves and their families. Some of them have become incredibly successful and they were keen to be involved as it was also good for them to move stock when there were very few customers due to the lockdown and no one being paid.

The next challenge was to get the packs out to our students when in some cases the police had barricaded all entries and exits to COVID affected areas.

Fortunately we had contacts who were telephone technicians, delivery drivers and government officials who were able to drive into these areas and deliver for us the food packs so by the end of the week all the students had food for about a week depending on the size of the family and extended family living in that home.

We continued that weekly until the lockdown was lifted and we will be keeping an eye on the situation as any outbreak of COVID cases could put the area back into lockdown.

Our students were so thankful to their Australian sponsors who, even though were going through difficulties themselves, were willing to help them in their time of great need.