Serving San Isidro Primary School

Hello, dear community!

We are a group of volunteers looking for other inspired souls to help us raise funds to help develop and spread the love at San Isidro primary school in the village of Balilihan in Bohol, Philippines. The project will take place from June 19 until July 8. We would be deeply grateful for any help at all.

Who are we? 

My name is Johan Jolin and I am the co-organizer together with Johannes Nylén for the Philippines Service Project 2018. We are two students from Sweden who have a strong passion for helping develop this world bit by bit, by spreading love and joy to others. Together with an international group of eleven students and three local contacts, we want to spread our love and care to the young children at San Isidro primary school, which is located in Balilihan of the island Bohol.

With our lovely group from 2017

As many of you may know, the Philippines is a beautiful country with the most warm-hearted and happy people. However, in the countryside of Bohol, many of them are living in conditions which you and I would consider being unreasonable by our standards. Large families cramped into small houses not larger than your bedroom, no sewers, limited paved roads, limited access to electricity, and most of them have never had the opportunity to even leave their island. But despite them being materialistically less fortunate than us, they are still the happiest and most loving people we have ever met, which is why we want to give back. But in order to do this, we need your help.

That small shack to the right is their toilet. A humble one to say the least.

These were my wonderful neighbors during my first visit in 2016. They came in every morning to watch me eat breakfast. Eventually, they musted the courage to start talking to me and I had the pleasure to grab myself a (blurry) picture together with them.

What do we do?
We have been in contact with San Isidro primary school who requested us to help them restore their school garden. The work we will be doing is restoring the school fence and restoring the path walk with concrete. This work will be conducted together with local professionals. We will be there to do labor work under the guidance of competent people so we can guarantee a good and professional result. The funds will, therefore, go towards:

• Material costs, hiring the professionals – €3330 (33300 SEK)
• Food for 14 people – €2940 (29400 SEK)
• Rent for 17 nights at the local dormitory – €990 (9900 SEK)

In order to prevent the schoolyard from flooding, we covered a part of it with concrete which we had to mix by hand. The work was definitely heavy but it was worth it! 

But we are not only going there to do heavy work, but also to spend time and spread joy to the children of the village. Since most of them do not have an opportunity to leave the Philippines, we decided to bring our countries to them. We will use these funds to host culture evenings where we share our cultures and traditions with the children, such as songs, clothes, games, dances.

This is our Swedish culture evening from 2017 where we shared Swedish traditions with all the students. SKÅL! 

We also use these funds to gather school materials, backpacks, and European candy which we will be handing out to the students. We will also be doing a homestay for a short period, where we live together with local families to experience their lifestyle and culture. For this reason, a part of the funds will also go towards buying gifts for these families, which will be in the form of food and other essential home supplies.

• Gifts – €230 (2300 SEK)

We will also need medical supplies and LOTS of mosquito repellant as well as sunscreen during our visit. 

• Medical supplies – €260 (2600 SEK)

Furthermore, we will be spending a couple of days exploring the beautiful nature of Bohol, and trying different exciting activities such as plunging, snorkeling and ATV riding, and also visit some of the local beaches before we head home.

• Plunging – €156 (1560 SEK)
• Snorkeling – €192  (1920 SEK)
• ATV – €234 (2340 SEK)

Our biggest expense is the flight tickets from Europe to the Philippines. The price per person is €900 which is why your donations would be much appreciated. 

• Flight ticket per person – €900 (9000 SEK)


This is why we are reaching out to you. In order to realize our project, we will be fundraising on the streets of Europe for two weeks prior to us going to the Philippines but we NEED the support of your warm donations to reach our goal. Therefore, we would be truly grateful if you want to help us by donating any amount to cover these costs. Every single penny counts.

Spending time and playing with all the children was the highlight of our entire service project. 

Why do we do this?

For three consecutive years now we have organized service projects in the Philippines for young people from all around the world who have the same passion as ourselves. This has all been made possible by all the amazing people around the world who helped us with their donations, and this year we need your help again.

In 2016 we built a playground in Carmen, a town located in central Bohol.

Our goal is to inspire young people to lead a lifestyle focused on helping others. In order to change this world and make it a better place we must all work together and inspire one another to be loving, caring and respectful in every situation. By bringing people from all over the world with different backgrounds together we hope to educate and motivate each other to be the best we can be. Peace starts with ourselves, and this is our way of fulfilling a part of our responsibility and inspiring others to do so as well.

The schoolyard in Candijay we laid concrete on in 2017 to prevent it from flooding. 

We hope you feel as inspired and as hopeful for the future as we do, and would like to help us serve Balilihan. If you wish to follow our project, please follow our updates on the projects, our activities, and the result of your help and donations, on Instagram: philippine_service, and if you wish to see for yourself what we do, please watch our project video from last year. 

Feel free to share this with others and let us keep inspiring everyone around us to make this world a little happier and better day by day.

Lastly, we would also like to thank Merly Barrete Barlaan, president of Woman’s Federation for World Peace Philippines, for helping us organize this project.

 

Thank You!
Salamat!
Tack så mycket!
Danke schön!
Merci beaucoup!
Gracias!

Yours truly,

The organizers,
Johan & Johannes