Category: Uncategorized

With Hope Comes Courage

According to a Philippine National Demographic and Health survey, one in four Filipino women aged 15 to 49 has experienced domestic abuse. Poverty seems to be a factor  with women from low-income households suffering even more than other groups; some of these women have even had their lives threatened.  Erlinda, a Transform participant from Tacloban,...

Empowering Women to Create an Impact

At ICM, we see that the women in our participant families play a vital role in their homes. When they are empowered and discover their worth and confidence, they launch their entire family forward and create an impact in their community. Meet Violeta! She lives with her husband and daughter in the mountainous regions of...

Hatching Sustainable Hope

Nabutay Transform Farmers Association (NATRANFA) is a savings group based in Dumaguete that is a part of our Prevail network. They were established in 2015 and currently have 25 members that all graduated from Transform. Though they were commited to saving their money and developing their entrepreneural ideas, things didn’t always go smoothly. At first,...

Weaving a New Future

Evelinda often felt frustrated and helpless as a housewife. Her husband, Nicolas, earned about PHP4,800(US$89) per month from his seasonal carpentry job. While the amount could be enough for a while, they also could have no income for long periods of time. All of this changed when Transform came to Evelinda’s community. Through the program,...

Family Festival: A Day of Information and Celebration

On March 23, we welcomed ICM family and friends to a fun-filled day at our first ever Family Festival! Family Festival was planned with two purposes in mind. We wanted to give our donors more information about Family Academy but we also wanted it to be a day where we could celebrate all the work...

Stepping Free from Poverty to Stand on HOPE!

It’s been about 5 months since the dance competition at our 2018 Hong Kong Banquet – Stepping Free from Poverty. It was an amazing night where all of our dancers competed and in the end, were awarded prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. The Coco Mamas from General Santos used their winning prizes to grow...

Transform Couples Tie the Knot

Transform equips participants to build stronger relationships, which for some, translate into stronger marriages. In a dumpsite in Iloilo, love was in the air. Nineteen brides, sixteen of whom were Transform participants, were given the opportunity to finally walk the aisle, making their unions official in a mass wedding ceremony put on by ICM. These...

“Best Pig, Ever!”

In this new year of the pig, there’s one pig you do not want to miss out on! Lechón is a Spanish term for a roasted suckling pig cooked over a pit of charcoal. The pig is usually cooked whole, with all of its parts still intact. The belly is slit to remove its internal...

Thank you for #TheGiftofOpportunities

This past Christmas, ICM set an ambitious goal to change the lives of 12 patients that were enrolled in our Medical Mercy Program. All of these patients were children awaiting life-changing surgeries that would correct their club foot condition. This condition limited the opportunities that were available to these children as it hindered their movement...

Igniting a Spark in Antique

ICM has always endeavored to saturate all of the Philippines to alleviate the issue of ultrapoverty. We’ve recently taken a big step forward by launching a new branch in Antique! Antique, a province in Western Visayas, has a total of 126,943 people living in poverty. This represents 26 percent of the population. Among all of...