A Common Goal Yields Unity
By Anita Mellott

"I am so grateful to Habitat that I want to give something back," says Cresenciana Tialato, a Habitat homeowner since 1990, in General Santos, the Philippines.

This attitude seems to epitomize the spirit of the community at General Santos.

In 1988, General Santos City HFH selected an initial group of partner families. Registering as a community association, the group acquired land through the Filipino government's Community Mortgage Program. Additional families soon joined the General Santos City Habitat Community Association, as Habitat selected them. Though the affiliate and the community association are two separate entities, they are, nonetheless, intricately interwoven, each supporting and benefiting the other.

In Habitat neighborhoods throughout the Philippines, homeowners such as Renaldo Mitcho are accustomed to working to develop a spirit of community.

The land acquired by the association in 1988 was divided into two "phases." Half of the lots in phase one were designated for Habitat homeowners. To generate more income, the association sold the remaining lots to families of a slightly higher income range than Habitat homeowners. These funds provided capital for laying roads, providing electricity and water supplies, drainage and a community center. Leasing part of the land to Dole Philippines for a banana plantation generates more income for the community association's programs.

In addition, the community association runs a hollow-block-making factory in order to help generate a livelihood for its residents, including Habitat homeowners. Habitat, in turn, buys these blocks for the construction of houses, thus providing income for the association.

The association also has helped build community through the various cooperatives that have formed.

The credit co-op provides members with financial assistance. Habitat homeowners benefiting from this have started small businesses -- owning livestock, or starting a sari-sari (convenience) store.

One such homeowner, Fernando Ebreganzo, a tailor by profession, augments his income through a sari-sari store and by raising pigs. "Life has improved since owning a Habitat house, and I have to exert more effort to help others," he says. He volunteers to maintain the security of the community and serves on the purok -- the group that arbitrates any conflict within the community.

Tialato, an active member of the women's association, has benefited from the group's seminars on livelihood, as have other homeowners. She also volunteers at the clinic that was built with donations from Habitat short-term mission teams from Kobe, Japan. A day-care center and a kindergarten school were also constructed from these donations. And to continue its support of Habitat for Humanity, the association donated the funds to sponsor a house during the Jimmy Carter Work Project in the Philippines last year.

Such unity and purpose yield a vital connectedness among these neighbors. Indeed, as a member of the General Santos City HFH board of trustees comments, "What was barren land before is now transformed into a community -- a self-sustaining community."





Reprinted from Habitat World Magazine, June/July 2000.
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©2000 Habitat for Humanity International