[av_heading tag=’h3′ padding=’10’ heading=’Homes for 24 Ati families in Jaro’ color=” style=’blockquote modern-quote’ custom_font=” size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ custom_class=”]
BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=’custom’ color=’#0a0a0a’]
Saturday, February 4, 2017
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
ILOILO City – Twenty-four Ati families now have what they can call a home.
Nongovernment organizations and the local government turned over yesterday concrete-and-bamboo houses to the natives in Barangay Lanit, Jaro district.
The houses were part of a project called “Langit sa Lanit,” according to project chairman Rodleyn Ngipen.
Ngipen, a member of the Junior Chamber International – Iloilo Ilang-Ilang, said the project seeks to address problems in housing, education, cultural preservation, legal and medical needs, values formation, economic opportunities, and nutrition.
More than 200 individual Ati benefited from the project.
“Daku-dako gid ni nga bulig. Kulang ang amon tinaga sa pag-describe kon daw ano kami ka malipayon kag mapinasalamaton (This is a very big help. Words are not enough to describe how happy and grateful we are),” said Pastor Rogelio Elosendo, president of the Ati Tribes Mission, Inc. in Western Visayas.
Elosendo recalled that he started gathering the Ati in Barangay Langit in 2013. Being a pastor, his travels to various places in Iloilo to conduct bible studies among street people allowed him to meet these Ati.
“I asked them if they want to live with me here in Lanit,” he said. “It has been our goal to see these street people as beggars no more.”
Elosando said they wanted to provide the Ati livelihood. A source of income will discourage them from wandering, he said.
Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog vowed to provide a livelihood project for the natives.
Mabilog led the groundbreaking for a P3-million road project that will connect the Ati village to the Tiu Cho Teg Ana Ros Foundation Integrated School in the nearby Iloilo River Plains Subdivision.
The mayor noted that the scholarship program of the Iloilo Dinagyang Foundation, Inc. has produced two professionals — a marine engineer and a registered nurse — from the Ati community.
“We acknowledge that the Ati are nomadic in nature, roaming around the city and sleeping on sidewalks,” he said. “Now they have permanent homes. Thus, we need a lot of social preparation in maintaining and sustaining a community. Education is very important, that’s why a road going to the school will be constructed.”
Other project partners included BASE BAHAY Foundation, Inc., Homeless Peoples’ Federation of the Philippines, Inc., and Western Institute of Technology – College of Engineering.
Meanwhile Mabilog and Elosendo officiated a mass wedding for 10 Ati couples./PN
[/av_textblock]
