Consortium builds classrooms, houses for Tacloban ‘Yolanda’ survivors

TACLOBAN CITY, Nov. 11 (PNA) -- The Pope Francis for Resilient and Co-Empowered Sustainable Communities (FRANCESCO) turned over on Friday the newly-completed two-storey six classroom building and some completed housing units built by typhoon survivors themselves.

The new building is located at the Scandinavian Elementary School in San Roque village to accommodate children whose families are expected to move to nearby Pope Francis Village.

Target dwellers of Pope Francis Village in Diit village are residents from coastal communities of San Jose district and Magallanes.

The school building was built through a collaboration with Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools in Alberta, Canada and Department of Education (DepEd) regional office here.

Ariel Nones, FRANCESCO project coordinator, explained that building classroom near the site of permanent shelters for super typhoon Yolanda survivors is part of the recovery works to help children survivors attain education.

The school facility will ensure that learners will no longer return to San Jose and Magallanes to study.

Nones added that the construction of the school building is special because parents of the children are the ones who built it after undergoing carpentry, welding and masonry trainings with the Technical Education Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

“We don’t have contractors. This was built by fishermen, pedicab drivers, farmers, mothers, and urban poor,” Nones said.

Ritchell de la Cruz, a mother of four children, was the one of the hundreds who helped in the construction of school and permanent houses.

“We are happy that we will own a new house because there’s no way we could afford to build our own house,” de la Cruz said.

But what was more exciting to her when she learned that she could be engaged in construction works just like men.

“It is empowering for me because before I’m just a housewife attending to the needs of my children and selling refreshments. But now I’m constructing a house, doing what a man does,” Ritchell recalled.

Pope Francis Village is a permanent and in-city resettlement initiative supported by FRANCESCO, a consortium composed of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (CCODP), 

(CBCP-NASSA), Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer-Redemptorist Community in Tacloban, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Palo (RCAP), Province of Leyte, and the Urban Poor Associates (UPA).

Of the 550 housing units to be built, workers are able to finished 54 units of permanent shelters since the project kicked off in August 2015.

The Army engineering battalion also plays a vital role in the ongoing construction of the housing units by helping in the site development of the area, which is located in a hilly portion of Diit village.

Pope Francis Village is a model resettlement with improved access to basic services and proximate to livelihoods of relocated families.

Aside from building resilient shelters, the project also involves provision of livelihood, and building of basic infrastructures. (PNA)

PGL/SQM/ROEL T. AMAZONA/EGR