Impact

In 2006, a graduate student visited Davao to conduct research and saw the need to help the economically disadvantaged and often marginalized. Today literally thousands of lives have been impacted immediately and for long-term good in the Mindanao region by sister non- government organizations spawned from that initial visit. Minority Care International and the Social Entrepreneurship Technology Business Institute that implemented College Education Behind Bars have transformed the well-being and livelihood of hundreds of young people, so that they give back to others improving the lives of the recipients and their own in the process. 

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Minority Care International has provided resources and direction for over a hundred to become college graduates, producing not only breadwinners and community leaders, but also nurses, social workers, pharmacists, engineers, educators, doctors, business entrepreneurs, and accountants. As part of the program, students attend weekly forums with speakers ranging from attorneys, doctors, government leaders and medical personnel who train and equip students to be good citizens and active participants in their communities. Students from five or six universities invite their friends, so that usually fifty or so attend these discussions on current issues and practical solutions each week. MCI scholars also participate in service learning projects with the result that students at about sixteen underfunded schools, particularly madrassas, have received backpacks with needed school supplies and enjoyed student-led parties where the MCI scholars discuss their educational goals and experiences. In addition, hosting eleven Restoring Vision events, the scholars have distributed more than 4000 eyeglasses and given eye checkups to more than 5000 individuals, often addressing presbyopia in various, mostly economically disadvantage communities. Committed to helping restore vision, and thus transform lives for the underprivileged, MCI dispensed reading glasses to the “people deprived of liberty” (PDL) at the Davao Prison and Penal Farm.

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Other community projects have provided water tanks, sand bags to flooding areas, and disaster relief. MCI education majors partnered with the Commission on Higher Education to offer daily tutoring in a variety of subjects to at-risk students. An MCI soccer team recruits youths who have dropped out of school, challenging them to the discipline of playing alcohol and drug-free in competition with other city teams. Volleyball and soccer tournaments and camps offer a more constructive friend group to those with few positive role models. Study retreats held each summer teach attendees, generally fifty or so, through an inspirational biographical book and ensuing discussions to consider their underpinnings and alternatives to their life choices. Over a dozen MCI scholars have engaged in the study abroad program attending a well-known university in the US and interning at a hospital or business to learn international practices in their field. Several hundred students have worked at the coffee shop learning life skills, customer relations, and hygienic standards. MCI has partnered with several local universities in Davao to bring speakers from the United States, including professors, bankers, government representatives, and business professionals, setting up educational seminars for the university faculty and students and for city leaders with hundreds attending each event.

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The Social Entrepreneurship, Technology, and Business Institute has taught scores the practices of social entrepreneurship to design a business to help alleviate poverty. It has certified groups to lead step rehabilitation teams addressing hurts, hang-ups, and habits of hundreds participating in the semester long programs. In 2016, SETBI’s College Education Behind Bars accepted its first students with now more than 300 having been enrolled and more than fifty having graduated, become fully employed, and successfully reintegrated into society. Three years later the CEBB program was replicated in the regional prison and has graduated nineteen in its two years of existence with more being enrolled in the program as the new facility at the prison opens.