PROFILE (Continued)

At different stages of our partnership with the people in our host communities, we have acted as organizer, trainer, convener, mentor and provider of project-oriented technical and small material assistance. Our overarching objective at every stage has been to promote people's own self advancement and their capacity to access community and government resources despite serious institutional barriers and an embedded culture of passivity.

We are excited about the breakthroughs going on in our host communities. In one community, Tabon, several groups have become highly visible in local development, recognized by the local government unit, productive in animal and food farming, and making first steps in agricultural enterprises. Our organizing work in Tabon started in 1996 based on immediate issues, but soon evolved to a stronger emphasis on leadership, organization and project capacity building for people's self-development. In 1999, three women's organizations banded together to create the Tabon Economic Development Fund (TEDF), a loan pool, to seed women's micro-enterprises included in the barangay five year development plan. TEDF in early 2000 loaned money to over 30 women to acquire new garden tools and grow organic backyard vegetables for family consumption.

Our networks have allowed us to further support the self-development of our host communities. For example, we have signed agreements with the Philippine Departments of Agriculture, Health, and Agrarian Reform to cooperate in farmer training and agricultural development in Aklan Province. We signed an agreement to coordinate development planning and project screening for women in several neighborhoods in the town of Makato. We are an active member of Barangay Bayan, a national consortium of Filipino NG0s focused on increasing democratic people's participation in local governance, and in the Southeast Asian Conference on Sustainable Agriculture, an Asian regional network of sustainable agriculture trainers. Our current and past funding partners include the Mennonite Central Committee (USA), Oxfam UK, Christian World Service (New Zealand), Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund, and Asian Partnership for Human Development.

The internal culture of Developers Foundation is grounded in a core motivation to empower rural people who are anonymous and invisible to people in power, yet are courageousand ready to make real changes in their lives through collaboration and the determined pursuit of objectives which they value. The benefits of our work with rural people are reciprocal. We draw inspiration from the people in remote, isolated communities whose patience and perseverence in the face of hardship are truly extraordinary. We seek to further the cause of these people, who by quiet example of courage, hope, persistence and creativity have shown us what development is really about.
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