Story of the strengthening of the organizational foundation of Salt Payatas Foundation Inc. a certified non-profit organization.
Providing “life skills education” for children and women in impoverished areas in the Philippines.
Private donations and supporting members increased after the mid-term plan was formulated.
“Salt Payatas Foundation Inc.” is a certified non-profit organization that provides scholarship support, operates libraries, conducts study tours, and raises women’s income in impoverished areas in the Philippines. Twenty years after its establishment, we spoke with Mr. Hiroyuki Inoue (Executive Director) about the organization’s efforts to strengthen its foundation and its success in revamping past activities and management.
[This is a re-edited version of an article originally published in No. 335 edition, THE BIG ISSUE JAPAN (May 15, 2018).]
Garbage Mountain Collapse Claims More Than 300 Lives
Full-Scale Implementation of Projects to Secure Alternative Sources of Income
The activities of Salt Payatas Foundation Inc. began in 1994. Two women, high school and kindergarten teachers, went on a study tour to the Payatas area of Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.
“Payatas has a trash heap known as Smoky Mountain, and at the time, young children were picking up what they could recycle. When we asked a girl around 14 what she wanted to do most, she said, ‘I want to go back to the second grade and study again.’” Mr. Hiroyuki Inoue, Executive Director stated the background.
Executive Director
Mr. Hiroyuki Inoue
Inspired by her words, the two worked to raise funds for the construction of a kindergarten in Payatas and began supporting children who were unable to continue on to elementary school due to financial reasons. “At the time, the tuition for one year of elementary school in the Payatas area was 12,000 yen. Salt Payatas Foundation Inc.’s work began by raising scholarship funds for these children.”
In 1995, the organization began “study tours” to Payatas to visit families and listen to the issues they were facing. “As we spoke with local mothers, we realized that they needed a source of income other than recycling garbage. So, in 1999, we began a business to help them improve their income by producing embroidery products known as cross-stitch, which are popular in the Philippines, and selling them in the Philippines and Japan.”
Then, in the summer of 2000, an unchecked pile of garbage collapsed, killing over 300 people who lived nearby. Those who lost their homes were relocated to the Kasiglahan area, which is about an hour’s drive from Payatas, and many people lost their jobs as a result of the garbage mountain’s closure. The collapse prompted Salt Payatas Foundation Inc. to launch a full-scale project to improve women’s income.
Girl Gave Birth in the First Year of Junior High School, Boy Repeated a Year in School Due to Father’s Violence
From Scholarship to Life Skills Education
Salt Payatas Foundation Inc., on the other hand, ran into the problem of “some children receiving scholarships but dropping out of school.”
“For example, one girl in Kasiglahan got into a fight with her mother and became pregnant while living at her boyfriend’s house. She gave birth in the first year of junior high school and left school. Despite having excellent grades, a boy in Payatas was beaten by his stepfather, was unable to study at home, was bullied in junior high school, repeated a year when he was 15, and then dropped out.”
The secondary school graduation rate with scholarships from Salt Payatas Foundation Inc. is 79%. While this is higher than the Philippine average of 48% (*2013, according to the Philippine Department of Education), the organization realized that interventions other than financial support were needed. That is why they began working on “life skills education” in 2010. “The goal of this program is to improve communication skills and self-esteem, which are required to deal with daily problems and live a better life. Children in Payatas and Kasiglahan’s poor areas struggle to find hope for the future and have low self-esteem. In addition, because they live for today, they are not good at thinking about things in the long run. This is exactly the skill they required, but it was difficult to find a precedent, so it was a trial and error process.”
First, the organization built a library in Payatas and held book readings, “Imagine Yourself in 10 Years” workshops and sex education.
“The fifth of ten siblings, the girl whose parents were garbage pickers, began reading to the little ones herself, and her grades gradually improved. Now in her fourth year of junior high school, she has come to tell us that she wants to study English in order to get a job in travel and tourism.”
Salt Payatas Foundation Inc. applied for the Panasonic NPO/NGO Support Fund in 2015 because it felt that as its focus shifted from “scholarships” and “income enhancement” projects to “life skills education,” which was less familiar to the public, it needed to consider “what issues it should prioritize and how it could sustain its organization to engage with children over the long term.” The organization urgently needed to review its fundraising strategy and make a generational change of the Executive Director, who had led the organization for the first 20 years. Furthermore, as the project grew in scope, there was a limit to how much the organization could be run solely by volunteers. The organization conducted interviews with staff and supporters, as well as an organizational assessment, with the help of an outside consultant. After a series of discussions, they came to see what they needed to do before revamping their fundraising strategy.
Organizational Assessment With Outside Consultant
New Fundraising Implementation and Planning for a Third Project Site
“We developed a medium-to-long-term plan, organized the work of our overburdened staff, and reviewed information sharing and decision-making authority. We increased the frequency of board meetings and established a structure in which information is shared, discussed, and decisions are made with the entire staff. We also imagined what Payatas and Kasiglahan would look like in three years, incorporated this into our mid-to-long-term plan, and prioritized each project to meet our objectives. Despite some challenges, such as some staff members who disagreed with the revised policies quitting, we were able to have more time to spare in our operations and think more concretely about fundraising strategies.”
“By involving a third party,” Mr. Inoue says, “we were able to identify the specifics of what was required to get closer to the goals we were aiming for.” Mr. Inoue, who had been involved with the organization as a board member while working as a company employee until 2015, realized “how interesting it was to manage an NPO in which citizens participate,” and through this work, became a full-time employee in April 2016, taking over as Executive Director from his predecessor.
Based on the findings of the first year’s analysis of the group’s operations, a fundraising strategy was implemented in the second year, and “private donations doubled from 1.15 million in 2015 to 2.35 million in 2016. Also, new supporting members increased from 8 in 2015 to 36 in 2016.”
In 2016, the organization also built a library in Kasiglahan. Currently, 1,126 children are registered to use the library, and local residents say that “fights have decreased,” “communication between parents and children has increased through books,” and “they have started talking about the job they want to have in the future.” Currently, the organization is teaming up with an economics expert to conduct a survey of children and their parents to find out how this life skills education is linked to changes in grades, lifestyle, and future earnings.
Over the past three years, with the support of NPO Akatsuki, we have been working to strengthen our organizational foundation, and this year we added “hiring of one new staff member” and “organization of public relations media” to our goals. “Seeing as our organizational infrastructure is being built, some young people have expressed interest in working for us, and we can now consider hiring them.” They would also like more opportunities to hear feedback from their supporters on a regular basis.
Mr. Inoue said, “By 2021, we plan to leave the operations in Payatas and Kasiglahan to local people and create a third business site.” “We would like to continue to change society and break the cycle of poverty by helping children learn.”
[Organization Profile]
A NPO Salt Payatas Foundation Inc.
Established in 1995. The organization became a non-profit organization in 2008 and was certified as a non-profit organization in 2016. The organization’s three main activities are “a child empowerment project” that provides scholarship support, library operations, and life skills education; “a women’s empowerment project” that helps women improve their income through the production of hand-embroidered products and sales in the Philippines; and “a field experience project” that provides hands-on programs in the Payatas and Kasiglahan areas.
