Homes for the poor in Philippines

I am Tracey Staines and I live in Lithgow, New South Wales, with my husband Mick and our four sons. When our first 3 boys were in their late teens we decided to adopt a child from the Phillipines. Rene joined our family in 2006 when he was 23 months old and he is now 10.

At the same time as we began the adoption process, we started sponsoring a Filipino child, named Judyanne, through Compassion Australia. We were able to visit Judyanne and her family when we picked up Rene in 2006.

Judyann lives in Escopa which is a slum in Manila. Most of the people in Escopa live in small dwellings that they have built themselves out of anything they can find, usually scrap tin, fibro and used rice sacks. Seeing people live like this has moved us to try and help.

The first time we took Rene back to the Philippines was in 2011. During that visit we were introduced to the Gentle Hands orphanage, where we helped to raise funds to expand the current buildings so they could accommodate more children. At the orphanage we became especially fond of a 13 year old boy named Gil. Gil was placed in the orphanage when he was severely burnt as a 5 year old, and his parents couldn’t afford the medical bills. We tried to adopt Gil but due to various rules and regulations we were not able to.

When Gil was about 15, he returned to his family in Escopa. Coincidentally, Gil’s family lived on the same street as Judyanne. In our next few visits to the Phillipines we would help these families with food and clothing, and take the children out for treats to the cinema and McDonalds.

After a typhoon went through Manilla in 2014, and nearly demolished Gil’s little shack, we wanted to help them build a safer home. So we raised $6000 in our local community and were able to buy materials to build a cement block house, with windows for ventilation.
In December 2014 Mick helped Gil and his family build their new home. Prior to this, 8 people had lived in a windowless shack measuring 2.5 metres by 3.5 metres.

A little money goes a long way in the Philippines, and we had enough left over from the $6000 to help another family finish their house. Fifteen of them had been living in a tent.

We were introduced to Marinel who is  a Social Worker in Escopa.  Marinel helps us with our work in Escopa by coordinating the building and buying of the materials. This has been a great blessing because the language barrier would otherwise be a real stumbling block. We were able to leave money with Marinel to help Gil’s family start a small business selling rice to the community.

We are going back to the Philippines in June. Our next project is to build a home to accommodate 25 people, which is made up of 5 families who are currently all living in the same makeshift building of tin and wood which has no water or electricity. This is very unsafe as they burn candles and kerosene.


Our goal is to raise $10,000 so we can help them build a home for these 25 people. It will have 5 rooms, one for each family and a toilet. We will also be connecting water and electricity. If there is money leftover we will start on the next house. We have raised $4000 so far from a garage sale and fundraiser lunch but we need another$6000. Please help us help these people.

Every single dollar raised will go towards materials for the buildings. We pay our own air fares and accommodation. If you want to know more about what we are doing in the Philippines you can follow us on Facebook, under Building Hope.