The ICPE mission is reaching out to these families with the goal of empowering them to overcome their poverty and its consequences. This is done through ministries to adults and children.

Most of the Balikatan members have no regular work. They live from day to day trying to sell items/food on the streets, washing laundry, or some work as scavengers at nearby dumpsites. Many of the husbands have no regular employment. They serve as construction workers on short term contracts whilst some fortunate few are employed as security guards in areas outside Montalban.

The main need now is for some means of employment. As we have now built relationships with these Balikatan members and helped them to grow in hope and confidence that it is possible, with God’s help, to move beyond poverty, it is important now to establish some ways of earning an income.

One of the livelihood projects that was undertaken by the ministry was candle making. After under-going a training session, Balikatan members produced handmade candles for sale for the Christmas season. The Balikatan members were willing to work hard and would be grateful for any help that will be given them to earn an income as well as recover their sense of dignity. In this project, we also discovered their strengths, and weaknesses in terms of their skills and abilities.

One of our goals is to help the members find ways of income that can help sustain their lives and families.

Most of the children come from large families with as many as 5 to 9 siblings and often lack individual attention. To help each child realize their unique and lovable identity as a child of God, we provide them with faith formation, retreats, birthday celebrations and educational trips. From the opportunities to serve at the annual Back to School Mass to performing Christmas nativity skits, we help each child develop self-confidence and find their God given talents.

Coming from low income families, the children do not have a balanced and nutritious diet. This leaves them easily susceptible to sickness and skin diseases. Most of them are also underweight. Therefore, we run vaccination projects and give multi-vitamins and milk supplements to assist the children in their physical development. Through generous donations, each child receives a set second hand clothes and educational materials or toys for Christmas every year.

As the children grow into their teens, we hope to help them apply their faith to the life questions that they are beginning to ask so that they would be able to make life-giving choices for themselves.

In 2010, following our move to Tagaytay, we extended our ministry to the children from our neighbourhood. Every month, we reach out to a 23 children between 5 and 8 years of age, with the same vision of nurturing and planting seeds of faith in young lives. We share gospel stories and provide basic catechesis through songs, prayer and fun activities.

As the ministry expands, we hope to continue to nurture the faith and development of children. Please contact us if you are interested to partner us in any educational or health projects!

This ministry aims to empower the children and youth through raising and providing funds from sponsors to enable them to attend schools and support their educational needs.

Through the help of our sponsors, school start up supplies (notebooks, stationary, papers, pens) have been given to 135 children as they started the new academic year in 2011.

You, too, can empower someone to improve their life! Please contact us for more details.