This coming October marks GK's 10th year, and we want to celebrate it by sharing with the rest of the world the stories that have helped define our work.  WATCH THE VIDEO for one such story, and read below for more.

The 3-storey building was a vision of blue and white. At first it seemed deserted; and then one by one, the Kapitbahayan (GK residents) started to come out to warmly welcome us into their compound. Shrubs of santan lined the front perimeter of the mid-rise, and in the hollow space underneath the stairs, was a charming cooperative called “Tindahan Natin”. Turning to face the gates we just entered, I see a cozy hut on my left, a garden landscape on my right, and a shed with some heavy equipment a little further down. Later, I would find out that the community manufactures roofs, and has recently added brick-making into their livelihood portfolio. Everyone was all smiles, and the children, albeit a tad shy, courageously sought out our hands and touched it to their foreheads in old-fashioned Filipino greeting.

Welcome to GK Lorega, Cebu.

Now empowered, the community has a cooperative called "Tindahan Natin" 

and manufactures roofs as part of their livelihood portfolio.

But once upon a time, not too long ago, it was nowhere close to this. From the roof deck, the view was a flashback into the lives that they once led and that many still continue to lead: a slum life amongst the dead. Shanties occupied the lot and forced its way in between and on top of the “nitso” or tombs of the old public cemetery. Piles of trash and rubble were all over, and a certain foul smell clung to the very air we breathed. This smell intensified when we went for a walk.

View from the roofdeck of GK Lorega: A slum life amongst the dead.

 Not too long ago, the GK Kapitbahayan lived in similar shanties built on top of tombs.

We went before sundown, and many were out to play. We approached a group of kids playing cards on white marble, and one kid gaily shared with me in Bisaya, “Ate, paborito naming laro dito ay tagu-taguan.” I figured. The adults were also getting ready to play their own game – let’s call it “spirit of the glass”. The bustling picture was completed by goats, roosters and dogs randomly scuttling about.

 They pretty much lead normal lives. They laundry and hang their clothes to dry. 

They put up Christmas decors and keep pets. Politicians and businesses reach out to them.

We had a brief encounter with Nanang Maxima Briones, a war veteran’s widow. Nanang Maxima ushered us into her home and offered for us to sit down on what serves as sofa in the day and bed in the night. As we politely declined to carry on with our walk, she “uncovered” it to show us the nitso underneath, and mentioned that it was the tomb of two kids from Samar. At the foot of her bed was a sack of bones, the remains of her late husband. During All Souls’ Day, she would sometimes get visitors – the families of the dead whose tombs she lived with.

The nitso was a staple furniture piece across the houses. It served many many purposes – 

as flooring, as dining table, and for Nanang Maxima, as bed.

On our way back, we also met a young woman who was born and raised in the cemetery. Putting the pieces of her story together, we realized that the child she carried was already the fourth generation in their family to live there. I did not know which was sadder – the fact that she had lived there all 20 years of her life or the fact that this is life as she knows it.

Although left unsaid, I was sure that the same thing was running in the heads of us, first-timers, there – these shanties that they called homes, it barely qualified for humans. Nobody should have to live and die in such a place.

Hope, for me, was resurrected upon meeting Mang Disco. He was a charming man, and nothing in his demeanor showed any trace of self-pity for the difficult past he had to live through. His real name is Dioscoro Pancho (42), and today, he resides in GK Lorega with his wife and three children, one of which is a “special child” he lovingly refers to as his “swerte”.

Mang Disco is now a proud homeowner and partner of GK in building hope

He brought us to his old house that remains perched on one of the “nitso”, just as I’d described earlier. He recalled his deepest frustration then – his mails never reached him. It had cost him a girlfriend, but more painfully, unrealized help from relatives who were willing to extend it but just couldn’t. The feeling worsened when he got denied a loan application because he did not have an acceptable address written down on his form. In Mang Disco’s words, "The dead were better off because their visiting loved ones could find them. Their tombs had names. But for all of us who lived there, we didn't have an address to speak of."

Disco brought us to his old house still perched on top of a tomb, 

just a short walking distance from the gate of GK Lorega.

A home address. When asked about what he is most grateful for, Mang Disco, in a heartbeat, will tell you that it’s having his very own home address. And you’ll see it in the way his face would light up and beam with pride whenever he’s made to share: “Condoville 1, Room 21, GK Lorega, Cebu City. Name: Dioscoro C. Pancho.”

Yes, there’s the blue and white 3-storey building that Disco and the rest of the GK Lorega community can now call their own, but at the heart of it is dignity and hope made alive in them again – something shared by all the other 2,000 GK communities in the Philippines.

It was never about the houses.

Gawad Kalinga (GK) is too big a story for one person to tell, and it wouldn’t be complete without the partners who have been with us throughout the years. You too can be part of this mission of ending poverty. To help build more communities like GK Lorega, click here.