KEY POINTS:
CEBU - Stephen Tindall started visiting the Philippines in the 1980s to source product for his then fledgling company, The Warehouse.
Twenty years on, the visits have stopped, but founder of one of New Zealand's most successful businesses is still leaving his mark on the lives of some the country's poorest citizens.
Frustrated by the plight of those making the handicrafts he was buying, he decided to try and help.
"I guess I saw just first hand, going up and visiting these people, the deprivation and suffering. I thought here's us making a profit out of products these people are making for us. We really should be trying to give something back."
He started off helping orphanages, but after a couple of years realised education was a potentially more powerful tool.
After finding some local trustees he began an education assistance scheme aimed at getting some of the children from Manila's vast squatter slums into schools.
The Philippines now has free state schooling, but many of the poorest children still miss out.
"The parents in many cases cannot afford their children to go to school, because they are out working, even the little ones -- begging or worse," he says.
"It's also impossible for them to pay for things like uniforms, books and transport."
The trust began selecting families who were not going to school and told them they would pay for their uniforms and materials if they signed an attendance contract. Students can receive assistance right through tertiary education.
"We've got kids now coming through who are graduates. Some have very good jobs and many of them are running the projects for us."
One of those graduates is Teresa Atienza. Teresa entered the programme in 1986 -- one of its first students.
Her family lived in a shantytown. Even there though they did not always have a roof over their heads and Teresa and her siblings would often have to sleep each night in the back of a jeepney -- an elongated jeep commonly used in the Philippines for public transport. The children had to get up at 4am in the morning when the driver began his first run.
Standing at just a little over 140cm tall, the 27-year-old still bears the scars of inadequate nutrition in her early years. But now a primary school teacher, she says the assistance has changed the course of her life.
Teresa is now saving money to get a government-assisted loan to buy her own home.
"Without the help I would have never gone to school and I would have never got to where I am."
The trust -- named Alay Buhay, meaning "a hand up" -- has so far assisted about 4000 students.
However about seven years the trust decided to also start putting resources into microfinancing and community development.
Mr Tindall says the microfinancing has helped thousands of families start small business projects and better feed and house their kids.
At present almost 3000 people are involved in the microfinancing scheme -- 94 per cent of them women.
"In many families we were helping, the kids might have been going to school, but the parents were still in absolute abject poverty.
"That's provided an income for a number of families whose kids are also now going to school."
One of those receiving a loan is Delores Cortez.
A resident of an automotive-industrial area in Manila's sprawling Quezon City, the mother of one was previously working 10 hour days hand-laundering clothes. Despite the long hours, she still needed to borrow from loan sharks to meet her family's daily needs.
The work was physically hard, and with her husband forced to return with a serious illness to the care of family in his home province, she found it difficult to look after her seven-year-old son.
But with a loan she was able to buy materials to start her own alleyway business, sewing small rug dusters. She now works from home, earning about a third more than previously.
Celia Elumba, the trust's Filipino vice president, says "partners" usually must pay back their loan over a 24 week period. A portion is also paid into a trust-held savings account which can then be used as collateral against further borrowing.
A typical 5000 pesos ($170) loan would require repayments and savings of 250 pesos a week. After the first loan is repaid borrowers must continue keep at least 20 per cent of their next loan's value in their savings account.
Partners are also formed into local groups, which hold weekly meetings where they can offer each other support and advice.
Another participant is 32-year-old mother of three Lore Cortez. Mrs Cortez lives in a massive squatter relocation town -- Kasiglahan -- just outside Manila.
The mother of three's illegal shack was demolished about six years ago. Along with about 50,000 others, she and her husband decided to take up a government relocation offer.
The small concrete row houses, which occupants can rent to buy, are just 20sqm -- usually two rooms -- with a 10sqm verandah.
Unemployment and crime are rife, and husband's minimum wage of about $70 per week, as a Manila clothing merchandiser is not enough to meet the families needs.
But Mrs Cortez has converted the family verandah into a tiny convenience store and with a loan from Alay Buhay she has been able to add a greater range of products -- including a prepay cellphone topup service.
"Before every salary day I was having to borrow money to pay for things like food, electricity and water," she says through a translator.
"Now I don't have to any more and I feel like I'm contributing to my family."
Alay Buhay is now at arms length from Mr Tindall -- overseen by a like-minded trust of New Zealand volunteers, Livelihood International.
However Mr Tindall remains its patron and contributes a large portion of its 80 per cent private funding through the Tindall Foundation. The other 20 per cent of its roughly $500,000 revenue, comes from the government's development assistance arm NZAid.
Mr Tindall says the project is a drop in a large ocean, but has been hugely satisfying. He says more business owners should consider doing something similar.
"It's a source of great pride to me because I think we have actually made a huge positive difference to thousands of people and we would like to do more."
(Grant Fleming travelled to the Philippines with the assistance of the Asia-New Zealand Foundation).
- NZPA
