Category: Livelihood

The idea of gardening is appealing to many. What’s not to love about saving money while growing your own food? Eating healthy is effortless when you have grown juicy tomatoes and leafy lettuce yourself. While gardening sounds tempting, not everyone has the luxury of enough land to start their own vegetable plot. Many of our...

Mylin, 23, lives with her partner Roderick and their nine-month-old daughter Yuri, in a house made of bamboo and palm leaves. They do not have electricity or proper water supply. Working as a farmer, Roderick makes roughly PHP2,000 (US$46.51) a month. His earnings equal US$0.51 per person, per day. It’s hard to believe that Mylin...

With more than 25 million Filipinos surviving on incomes below US$1.25 per day and some seven million living on less than US$0.50 per day, poverty is a daily hardship and enduring misery for those in the Philippines at the bottom of the economic ladder. On October 17, 2016, the United Nations will lead the world in marking the International...

Report by Bernard Bocado, ICM GenSan CO  //  Text by Erica Gurdiel-Etbew, ICM Junior Editor, and Meng Valientes, ICM Senior Editor Despite modern technology, the partnership between man and animal will continue to be effective; Policemen have dogs, farmers have cows, shepherds have sheep and in the case of our ICM General Santos Trainers, they...

By Christine Joyce Ajoc, ICM Project Manager, Weekley Project “Are you dreaming BIG enough?” This was the challenge posed to the attendees by the National Livelihood Convergence (NLC), an event organized by ICM’s Livelihood Department in Cebu City, Philippines on September 23-25, 2013, through the generous sponsorship of the David Weekley Family Foundation. The Convergence...

As the Finance Officer in the ICM Hong Kong Office, I spend most of my day on spreadsheets, filling out forms, and at the bank.  Last week I had the opportunity to visit our ICM base in General Santos with the Transform Program sponsors from Union Church HK. When we were visiting the Transform Program, one...

On a recent trip to our ICM Base in Dipolog, we met Emeliano and his wife, Salome.  Salome was a member of the 1st batch Transform Program in their area, where she learned how to start an in-ground garden.  She shared what she learned from the Livelihood lessons with Emeliano and he really got into it...

by Helen Turner, ICM COO After successful trials during 2011/12 ICM has been able to develop a training model to incorporate the values, health and livelihood training for the parents of the Malnourished Children Outreach (MCO) participants.  It is an exciting model involving local community members represented by the local Church Pastor and three Church...

Teaching essential life skills through a supportive, community-based approach, ICM unleashes unfulfilled potential in impoverished communities.  We partner with local leaders from 2,500 slums to empower more than 100,000 people every year to fight the bondage of poverty.  After participating in our transforming values, health and livelihood training program, our families experience a 42% reduction...

Children from 2,822 poor families in the Philippines are going to bed will fuller tummies!  That’s how many ICM program participants recently graduated from the 16-week Transform program, where they learned organic farming skills, better health practices and the power of positive values.  4,454 family and community gardens were started, and Php166,783 extra income was...