“Cura personalis,” or care for the whole person, is a phrase deeply imbedded in the heart of Georgetown’s Jesuit values. Originally used to describe the responsibility of Jesuit priests to care for those in need, it has now been expanded to apply to all members of the Georgetown community.

A new program here at Georgetown, run in the Philippines over the summer, takes that phrase to heart while giving it a Filipino twist.
Gawad Kalinga means to give care, which is exactly what the seven students who participated in the program did.

The students worked with an organization, appropriately titled Gawad Kalinga, that is committed to poverty reduction and nation-building in underdeveloped areas. It began in the Philippines, but has since expanded to Burkina Faso, Indonesia and Papa New Guinea, among other countries. The group was founded by a Catholic faith group as a rehabilitation program for out-of-school youths. They soon realized that simply providing activities to occupy the adolescents’ time was not enough and switched to a holistic approach. The organization began building homes equipped with adequate lighting, clean water and proper amenities.

Gawad Kalinga, often shortened to GK, has branched from there; it now offers seven programs devoted to various aspects of caring for the whole person: a community infrastructure program, child and youth development, Gawad Kalusan (to give health), Green Kalinga, Bayan-Anihan (the feeling of community coming together to help one another) Mabuhay (welcome) and Kapit-bayahan (neighborhood). While each site (there are over 1,000 in the Philippines alone) resembles a Habitat for Humanity site, the holistic approach sets it apart.

Georgetown students have partnered with GK for the past two summers, working for 10 days on a project site. This past summer, the site was GK Poveda, named after the Catholic high school that funded the rebuilding project. A typical day for the seven students, all Filipino or Fil-Am (born in America to two Filipino parents), included intensive hands-on labor such as laying sand, mixing cement and passing hollow bricks. The passing of the bricks was not only functional, but it embodied the nature of bayanihan, or coming together as a community to rebuild the nation.

Other days were spent touring other nearby GK projects, like the GK Selecta Farm. The farm is run entirely by Filipinos who have received homes or are in other ways affiliated with Gawad Kalinga, and produces organic produce as part of a food sustainability program. All of the food produced goes directly to the families working on the farm.

The students also met with Taguig City Mayor Freddie Tinga and Taguig City Councilman A.P. Bartolome (MSB ’93) to discuss the ways in which GK was being incorporated into the development of the city. Tinga describes the process as top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top. He contributes not only by building health centers and schools, but by working with those living in the slums to eradicate poverty.

Once the work was over for the day, however, the true experience began. Each student was assigned a different host family to stay with for the duration of the trip. Nights were spent bonding with their adopted families, playing with local children and listening to guest speakers on the importance of being a bayani (hero) in their communities. For some, the time spent doing these bonding activities proved to be the most valuable.

“In a very short span of seven days, I’d like to think that we built a very valuable relationship,” said Kara Abarcar (NHS ’10), the trip’s organizer and second-year attendee. “At the end of the trip, there was a going away party with all of the students and their families. Everyone was crying — it was very emotional.”

Abarcar left behind a family of four who had sacrificed everything in order to receive a house through the GK program. The father had previously worked as an electrician, but the family was still living in a house made of dilapidated wood and tin sheets. GK presented them with the opportunity to receive a real home, provided they contribute 1,500 work hours toward the project. When faced with the choice of keeping his job or building a home for his family, the father decided to commit himself fully to GK. As of now, both parents are unemployed, but living in a house they built from the ground up.

Stories like these were shared openly between the students and host families, while the reflections shared among the participants helped them process the work they had completed during the day.

As the program — which is entirely student run at Georgetown — moves forward, Abarcar hopes to create a partnership with a Jesuit university in the Philippines, and turn the trip into a social justice and academically based immersion. The program, however, is still fledgling and hoping to recruit more members to make the trip next summer.

“There is a lot of pressure on us, not necessarily from any outside source, but internally, to keep up with universities like Harvard, Yale, UCLA and UMD among others. They are all extremely involved with GK,” said Abarcar.

Returning from her second year on the trip, and first as an organizer, she says that the most rewarding aspect for her is watching the participants connect with their roots. Growing up in the Philippines, Abarcar did a lot of community outreach in her high school, connecting with many mothers and witnessing firsthand the need for adequate health care. She cites this as her inspiration to enter the nursing field. When asked if she plans on continuing her work in the Philippines in the future, Kara’s face lights up.

“Definitely,” she said, smiling. “This is only the beginning.”