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PROFILE
DEVELOPERS Foundation is a non-profit organization registered under the laws of the Philippines. Since 1991, we have been working with rural farm and fishing communities to reduce poverty and environmental degradation at the local level through community organizing, advocacy and sustainable rural community-based development. While based in Aklan, our program activities extend into Capiz, and are planned for other provinces in the Western Visayas.
The primary problems we are trying to address are (1) food and income insecurity of impoverished uphill and coastal Aklanon farmers, especially women, most of whom are tenants using harmful and expensive chemical-intensive farming methods on rain-fed land plots of one half hectare or less; and (2) social and economic marginalization of poor farmers and fisher folk, maintained through a non-transparent, unresponsive service system that keeps farmers dependent and placid. These problems are documented in our investigations and are corroborated by some government and other studies of local needs and conditions. We are part of a wider movement in Philippine civil society striving peacefully for a more equitable and sustainable social order in rural provinces. |
THE PHILIPPINES
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Our constituents are mainly rural tenant farmers and fisher folk living in remote, rain-fed upland and coastal communities of Panay Isand in Western Visayas. A typical household numbers six members an earns an average of US$30 per month through a mix of agriculture, fishing and :sideline: enterprises (the local median income is US$75 per month). Participants in our programs are 55% women. Most are in their most productive years (25-55), are native to Panay Island, and speak either Aklanon (in Aklan) or Ilonggo (in Capiz). Their rented lands are too small to qualify for government assistance under current national land reform legislation. In barangay development planning, we also work with a broad cross-section of local residents encompassing all age groups and classes, and with local government officials.
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