URGENT APPEAL: Please donate to rebuild the house of Jonathan and Nanay Noning dela Cruz

The typhoon season is here and 81-year-old Nanay Noning and her son Jonathan who has a physical disability, are facing the very real threat of homelessness. Their house in Brgy Silagon, Ajuy is made of light materials and was really intended to be a temporary shelter. But they didn’t have the resources to make it permanent. It is now in a terrible state and on the verge of fully collapsing.

Jonathan, the breadwinner of the family, lost his arm in an accident many years ago. He is only able to do some manual work and barely scrapes enough for their needs, and Nanay Noning is too old to do much. They need our help to rebuild their home.

Women in the Midst of the Climate Crisis

A mother is seen carrying her child while doing household chores in this photo taken in 2019. Photo by Mark Z. Saludes

Note: This article first came out of the environmental media outfit Oeconomedia. on November 4, 2021. It also appeared in Licas News and the World Mission Magazine.

I had the opportunity to talk about women and climate in the Philippines in a COP26 side event through the Climate Café held at Glasgow Kelvin College. I mainly recalled my experience a few years ago, while working in a large-scale Haiyan Recovery Program, covering Housing, Health, Sanitation, Livelihood, Education, and DRR. The program spanned seven municipalities on the island of Panay. Leading the performance and accountability team, I have seen firsthand what challenges women had to go through to access support. But that is only the tip of the iceberg of women’s problems relating to climate change. 

We are #PhilFutures

We aim to make Filipinos futures-literate and future-ready.

In the past few weeks, a tiny team of dreamers have been having Zoom meetings and working in preparation for today, the launch of the Philippine Futures Thinking Society or PhilFutures. It is most probably the first futures thinking society in Asia. PhilFutures is a collaborative effort of the Philippine Society of Public Administrators under the leadership of Dr. Lizan E. Perante-Calina, Vice President of the Development Academy of the Philippines -Graduate School; Prof. Shermon Cruz, Director and Chief Futurist of the Center for Engaged Foresight, Dr. Reginal Uggadan, Director of the University of the Philippines-NCPAG, Mr. Emmanuel De Guia, Senate Consultant, and yours truly.  Of course, it would never have been possible without the support of Celine Abella, our technical volunteer.