Our story
Our story has motivated us to form our charity Limestone, guiding from poverty. We have past experiences from orphanage living, development and refurbishment, living through communist era poverty and post communist era effects and impacts on social struggles for personal development, social skills, self-sufficiency and future outlook. Here we give an insight into why we do what we do and the background to our charity.
Factors
impacting
poverty
There is no doubt that contributory factors impacting poverty are multi-fold including; economic circumstances, lack of proper governance, investment in education, poor sanitation, health issues, neglect by regimes and inherent corruption and more.
Communities who grow up impoverished often lack the food, sanitation, shelter, health care and education they need to survive and thrive. Across the world children are multi-dimensionally poor, meaning they lack necessities as basic nutrition or clean water. Education is a basic human right, but many children still do not have the opportunity to learn, especially if they live in poverty.
Communities in poverty may experience multiple disadvantages through unemployment, low income, poor housing, inadequate health care and barriers to lifelong learning, employment and security.
Guiding
from poverty
There is no single solution to end poverty, an approach to development that provides access to five key aspects; education, water, health, food, and opportunity are the main factors which need to be addressed to empower a community to lift itself out of poverty and become self sufficient for their futures.
Why is it so difficult to get out of poverty? There are several factors that make it difficult for people to escape poverty. A lack of access to capital is a major contributor to poverty traps to enable individuals and communities to develop themselves, their surroundings with the necessary facilities for daily living.
Poverty has a cyclical nature where those living in poverty are often doomed to raise children with fewer opportunities who would continue to live a life of poverty and pass it on. These issues lead to difficulties in moving away from poverty and often become perpetual from generation to generation.
It is clear that these major factors are related to poverty situations, solutions and developments to these are the key to guidance for individuals and communities.
Poverty
concerns
in the
Philippines
Social problems
The Philippines has many social problems. These include environmental degradation, unemployment, inequality, corruption, and lack of access to education. These problems often lead to poverty and desperation as people struggle to make ends meet and many turning to crime.
Malnutrition
Hunger is one of the extreme effects of poverty in the Philippines. With little money to buy food, Filipinos are having to survive on very limited food; even when food supplies are stable, they are most accessible in other areas where people have enough income to purchase the food.
Housing shortage
The Philippines is hit by frequent seismic activity, natural disasters and typhoons a year, destroying lives, livelihood and homes. The affect of this causes a housing deficit and leaving many persons homeless.
Poor in poverty
A lack of access to productive capital and limited market access has created slow economic growth and underemployment. The rural poor have limited options for off-farm employment and low access to inexpensive financial services. The majority of poor Filipino households have only achieved basic levels of education.
Housing problems
In the Philippines alone, tens of millions of people live in substandard housing, and this is projected to increase year on year. Housing indicators are sliding backwards; rapid urbanization is driving precarious construction often in precarious locations.
Our tour
in the
Philippine
islands
During our 2018 tour from Panglao Island, Bohol to Bacolod Island, we observed countless rural settlements, comprising run-down developments, shacks, small businesses running from dilapidated wooden huts, people and children looking impoverished in many deprived areas.
Our observations sparked memories and feelings from our past experiences in the communist era in the Romanian orphanage and the impacts post era. It became clear that the issues affecting the society were essentially the same as our past experiences only in a different country. The opportunity for a charitable effort was compelling and obvious for supporting communities who can significantly benefit with dedicated assistance for development improvements.
We came up with the idea of a charity whilst in Panglao Island, Bohol. Our name is derived from the bed rock of Panglao Island being limestone rock. This signified a connection with the founding of the charity and the area in which we primarily intend to operate our charity.
Our charity
Our charity is a small community based charity governed by its trustees. We support people and communities through some of the most challenging times they have ever experienced; we help them to take control of their lives for a brighter and better future, we aim to guide them from poverty.
We change lives of people in deprived communities by supporting community projects and funding facilities to add value to people's lives and futures. Every child and adult deserves an opportunity to get the help, care and support they need to realise their dreams and reach the aspirations they desire for their lives.
Our work depends on the generosity of our supporters without whom we could not provide the developments and facilities for the communities we support. The work we do provides you with an opportunity to make a difference and help shape a life for a better future.