Levin’s Mike de Boer co-leads team to Philippines for SCOT Kids Hope Foundation trip

The team of 8 volunteers from Horowhenua and Otaki travelling to the Philippines in November this year.

A small group of eight Christians are set to travel over 8000km this November as part of an ongoing community outreach programme in the Philippines.

The group will be co-led by Levin’s Mike de Boer, who is co-founder and executive director of the Aotearoa New Zealand and Philippines registered charity SCOT Kids Hope Foundation. The foundation was founded by Mike, his wife Sharon and New Zealand-based Philippines national Nanette Carillo back in 2009.

The de Boers were inspired to start the foundation after they adopted a 5-year-old orphan boy from the Philippines, and since then the foundation has been making a positive impact in the Philippines, transforming the lives of hundreds of children there.

The November trip, made up of members of both the Life Changers Church in Levin and Ōtaki’s The Hub Church, will celebrate the SCOT Kids Hope Foundation’s 15 years of making a positive impact in the Philippines, said de Boer. The trip also gives the visitors valuable community development experience, he said.

“The Horowhenua and Ōtaki Team of eight aim, over 10 community development events in November, to inspire Philippines school children, young adults and their parents to achieve their dreams and to live to their full potential through creative life lesson telling and inspiring motivational talks.”

They will use puppets to put on street shows and drama skits to creatively share life lessons with children and young adults. The team will also share some uniquely Kiwi experiences with the children they meet, teaching some simple te reo as well as sharing Māori culture through dance and song.

Some of the puppets that will be travelling to the Philippines this November as part of a charitable outreach.

The team will work alongside local churches while in the Philippines, said de Boer, helping with feeding programmes “as well as providing much wanted Bibles and T-shirts to under-privileged children”.

Through community feeding events, education scholarships and $20 monthly sponsorships, the SCOT Kids Hope Foundation has changed the lives of 700 Philippines children living in slums over the past 15 years, said de Boer.

“They have been transformed into school children, university scholars and professional workers giving back to the Scot Kid Hope Foundation and to their beloved country of the Philippines.”

A young woman called Fiona represents one of the foundation’s many success stories, said de Boer.

Members of the SCOT Kids Hope Foundation on a previous community uutreach trip to the Philippines.

The de Boers first met Fiona when she was 7, growing up in a disadvantaged rural background. Through a yearly education scholarship from the Scot Kids Hope Foundation, Fiona was able to break that cycle of poverty through education. She is now 22, and in her third year of medicine at university in the Philippines. She is also now giving back to the foundation herself, empowering the next generation of SCOT children and young adults to achieve their dreams, through her work as a SCOT Foundation coordinator.

The foundation isn’t just making a difference to the lives of children in the Philippines, said de Boer, but also closer to home.

“The SCOT Foundation vision is to assist with reducing child poverty by setting up education programmes to empower Aotearoa New Zealand and Philippines children to grow to their full potential, including experiencing a new culture and language from a different country. In New Zealand the SCOT Foundation empowers - through before-school breakfast feeding and providing school stationery - disadvantaged Māori and Pacific Island children and young adults.”

• For details on the SCOT Kids Hope Foundation and to sponsor a child for $20 each month or to set up an education scholarship please contact Mike or Sharon on mikedeboer2011@yahoo.com or 027 302 3274.

Ilona Hanne is a Taranaki-based journalist who covers breaking and community news from across the region. She has worked for NZME since 2011.