PREDA NEWSLETTER June 1997

Dear Friends,

How time flies – I can hardly believe it is over two months since I last wrote to you in the last newsletter.

There has been a lot happening here at PREDA. There are now twenty children in the recovery program for neglected and abused children. Ten of them were able to join Summer Camps where they participated in games swimming, sports and adventure hikes and outdoor training.

For children who were badly abused it is terrific to see them doing so well and enjoying life.

Three of our young boys transferred to Bethany House, an orphanage run by the Carmelite Sisters about fifty kilometers from here. They came yesterday with one of the sisters for a visit. They are settled in and happy.

A group of kind hearted women from Stord in Norway has volunteered to help the boys.

Summer Activities

This summer there were many activities for the children at PREDA.

We brought in a music teacher and the house was filled with the squawks and howls of a very untrained choir. But after two weeks, the harmony grew sweet. We also got a dance teacher and the main hall was the scene of dance and laughter.

There was jar painting. PREDA help find buyers for a community of painters who hand paint beautiful jars with ethnic and other designs. They came to teach the children and there was a lot of excitement and fun.

Filipino-American Youth Training

There were also youth training seminars for the group of 15 teenage Filipino-American children who PREDA is helping overcome their poverty, low-self esteem and are sending to school.

The human development training is the most important. These young teenagers, boys and girls 12 to 17 years old, have to overcome the effects of years of discrimination because of their background.

We can see a new sense of pride and dignity emerging.

Scholarships

Ten high school graduates were admitted to the PREDA Scholarship college program this month.

These are intelligent young people who graduated near the top of their class and who will become future Christian leaders of the youth and join the battle against sex tourism and child abuse both while in college and afterwards.

This commitment while students will shape their outlook and strengthen their character.

Speakers Bureau Graduation

For the past year the PREDA public education program has been training young people in several towns in the province to be volunteer public speakers and organizers of public education seminars on children’s rights, drug abuse and HIV/Aids prevention.

They will become Community Organizing Volunteers.

This week they will graduate after the final three day seminar and will soon be organizing and conducting seminars in their own towns.

School Enrollment

This week also we are busy organizing all the children to enroll in school.

Three of them cannot enroll outside because they are threatened and in danger from their abusers. So we have arranged for tutors to come into the centre and teach them here and they will be tested by their school and will be able to take their exams.

Abuser Lured To His Arrest

Three weeks ago we were able to bring about the arrest of a child abuser, James Kuns who sexually abused a 2 1/2 year old child.

He went into hiding so PREDA we devised a plan to lure him out.

We sent him a letter and a magazine as if coming from a friend in the United States who would soon arrive and bring him money from his relatives. The magazine, a National Geographic, was to be carried by Kuns so this “friend’ from America could recognize him.

It worked!!

Kuns arrived at the meeting place holding the magazine. We drove over and the two National Police agents we brought with us grabbed him.

After reading him his rights and showing him the arrest warrant we brought him to jail and now he is back on trial.

Fair Trade and Trade Fairs

PREDA is very active in helping small producers of handicraft and cooperatives producing mangoes and other fruits and providing them with a direct link to the international market.

Hundreds are employed as a result. Mrs. Merly Hermoso co-founder of PREDA in 1974 is the general manger of this department.

Many children are lured into prostitution when their families are forced by poverty to leave their villages and migrate to the city slums where life is even harder. To stem the flow of migration rural poverty alleviation projects is very important and an effective prevention of child prostitution.

As part of our assistance to these producers and to increase markets for their products we have been working with the Canada Assisted Community Enterprise Development project.

Mr. Alex Hermoso, Program Director at PREDA, was elected President of this national association of Fair Traders. With funds from CIDA the association is organizing a Trade Fair this year in Manila.

Next year selected producers and their products will attend three trade fairs in Canada.

Where The Money Comes From

The mangoes growers cooperatives were greatly assisted by a fund procured by the incredible efforts of Hank and Tillie Zyp of the St. Joseph’s Save the Children’s Fund in Edmonton, Canada.

Jubilee Campaign in England headed by Danny Smith, is a big supporter in our child rescue and investigation work. Caritas Netherlands and Caritas and Heks Switzerland have contributed annually to the operation of the Childhood for Children project that cares for the victims of child abuse.

PREDA of course must provide its share of counterpart funds for all these projects and provide the administration costs.

We rely on donations from friends and supporters.

ADB Meeting in Japan

Last 8 to 13 of May I attended the Non Government Organizations (NGO) group at the meeting of the Asian Development Bank held in Fukuoka City, Japan.

The bank is the biggest lender of money to the Philippine Government for many projects frequently shunted aside so the poor make way for the infrastructure funded by the bank.

Helping the poor and monitoring the environmental impact of the projects is the role of the NGOs.

Our group had private meetings with the bank president and vice president and senior bank officials to discuss various problems.

I was able to get a hearing for the problem of huge electric cables erected near the PREDA Children’s home and it’s now possible that we might be able to find a remedy for these dangerous cables.

I’m Sued For $150,000

Fr Shay’s column in the Issue, a national daily newspaper, last March exposed a big hotel making moves to demolish a Muslim village to expand the hotel. The owners sued myself, and the paper for almost PhP3,100,000 (US$153,000).

The story is well documented and we expect that it will be dismissed.

Regrettably a wing of the hotel burnt down two weeks after we were sued. No connection of course.

Human Rights Award

The Senior PREDA Investigator on child abuse cases Rolly Besarra has been nominated for a Human Rights Award by the American shoe giant Reebok. It is worth US$25,000 to the winner.

Rolly says that if he wins he will donate part of the prize money to the investigation department and to the child victims, the rest will be for a educational investment fund for his first child due in August.

Fr. Shay Cullen and the PREDA Children and Staff