To celebrate its birthday in a meaningful way, AIR FRANCE KLM in the Philippines chose to partner with Gawad Kalinga in building houses for poor Filipino families and give hope through community-building projects.
The idea began during the last quarter of 2008 when preparations were being made for the year to come to mark a momentous event in KLM's history. By May 2009, a site for the AIR FRANCE KLM-Gawad Kalinga Village was finally determined. It was going to be in Bagong Silang in Caloocan City.
Bagong Silang is the birthplace of GK. It was formerly known as "toilet village" in the 80's and early 90's, a lair for criminals in the northern part of Metro Manila, where abandoned families lived in ghetto-like existence. In 1982, it was initially intended to be a relocation site for some 2,000 poor families who were evicted from their squatter situation in another part of Metro Manila. Over the next couple of years, its population grew and the place was practically left ungoverned by law and resistant to peace and order. Then in 1999, Gawad Kalinga started its first-ever housing project in a small part of Bagong Silang with an ambitious vision of transforming the physical structure of the place, and above all, rehabilitating its residents. Described as the largest slum in Manila with one million dwellers, Bagong Silang's number of transformed-and-reformed inhabitants continues to grow with more corporations and private individuals finding inspiration in giving hope to less fortunate Filipinos. As of today, more than 2,000 houses have been built by Gawad Kalinga and its partners in this once notorious dumping ground for corpses of crime victims and "salvaged" criminals. During his 60th birthday celebration held recently at Bagong Silang, Tony Meloto declared that crime rate has dropped significantly with the growing number of families who are already integrated into GK communities.
At the time the site for the AIR FRANCE KLM Village was selected, the long strip of land was lined with a row of shanties where families with an average of six children lived in dismal conditions.
Some of these houses were later stripped down to give way for the official ground-breaking held on 6 August where the first few units would be put up soon after.
The plan was to have the first four houses built and ready for occupancy by October in time for KLM's celebration of 90 years of inspiration, together with Air France's 76th anniversary. However, a series of typhoons that hit the country and the continuous downpour that inundated major cities in high water levels hampered the project's construction timelines. GK had focused its energy in helping thousands of families that were affected by the terrible floods Metro Manila had experienced in 40 years. Thus, it was only by mid-November when construction finally kicked off. Before the Christmas holidays, four houses were already half-way completed.
AIR FRANCE KLM has been inviting friends and business partners to join hands in giving a better future to the families of Bagong Silang. Since its ground-breaking in August last year, generous donors from here and abroad have brought tremendous blessings to the project. Volunteers with big hearts have also signed up to take part in different phases of the construction. The project is not all about building decent houses to provide shelter for poor families. In fact, the plan now includes building a library in the proposed eco-park nearby. Equally important is that AIR FRANCE KLM shares GK's holistic approach of incorporating soft programs which are relevant in building strong communities, providing practical education and restoring human dignity among its residents, both young children and adults.
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