Christmas Newsletter 2023 from the Preda Foundation for children

Christmas Newsletter 2023
from the Preda Foundation for children

Dear friends and supporters,

Christmas is really the time to celebrate children’s rights and to renew our commitment and determination to continue taking a stand for them, protecting, rescuing and saving them from harm and advocating protection for all vulnerable children. That’s the mission of Preda Foundation and we thank you for the help, support and donations that you have contributed to help many children. From the first days of his birth, Jesus of Nazareth was born a very vulnerable child. He was threatened with death by King Herod and escaped with his life when his parents fled into Egypt.

Happy days at the Preda home for girls

The past 2023 has been another successful, positive and happy year for 150 children/survivors that were helped in the Preda home for girls and recovered strongly from the trauma of their abuse. The children that flee their abusers find refuge and protection in the Preda homes. Here, they get a new lease on life, thanks to your donations and support and help. They are happy and content but wish for a happy future.

When rescued from their houses or sex bars of their abusers or traffickers, Preda staff and children give them a warm welcome, affirmation, encouragement, support, understanding, friendship, and reassurance. A great start to their recovery. They feel safe and well-protected where their abusers can’t get them. Please continue your support all the more and help us save more because there are many more frightened children in hiding, scared to tell anyone. They need to be rescued from their abusers and human traffickers and supported in the Preda family. There are at present 64 girls from the ages of 6 to 17 in the Preda home at different stages of healing and empowerment and recovery. Their dignity and self-confidence is restored, their lost childhood is recovered and they experience, perhaps for the first time, freedom, happiness and joy.

Rose Anne was 14 when she was first abused by her uncle and a cousin and they threatened to kill her if she told anyone. Just like Jesus was threatened by King Herod. She lived in fear everyday until she told a classmate of her ordeal and she told a teacher and Rose Anne was then rescued by Preda and a government social worker. She recovered at the Preda home for girls with the help of caring staff and freely joined the Emotional Release Therapy where she cried, shouted and released her pain and anger at her abusers. Today, she is recovered and has bravely testified against her abusers and convicted them both to life in prison. Rose Anne is enrolled now in college with the help of Preda supporters and is strongly outspoken and will be a great police woman one day.

This year, 18 child sex abusers were convicted by Preda children. In 2022,  20 abusers and traffickers were convicted. Victories continue month by month.  Since the girls home first opened in 1996, as many as 400 plus abusers and traffickers have been convicted and are serving life sentences, thanks to the brave and courageous children that told their story convincingly and truthfully to the court and were believed.

Many more Preda children are on their way to a similar happy future as Rose Anne’s, including the 85 children that were reintegrated this year to safe, supportive families. They will join the 47 other children that were reintegrated in the previous year. They continue their education through the Preda aftercare educational financial support program and are visited and cared for by a Preda outreach social worker.

Boys deprived of liberty

Preda continues to campaign for the release of boys deprived of liberty by advocating on social media the proper implementation of the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Law. This law, Republic Act No. 9344, which Preda campaigned to be enacted, says youth 15 and younger cannot be deprived of liberty and cannot be charged with a crime or held in detention. Yet, the children are still being arrested and locked up in detention centers. Some are street children, seriously at risk of abuse. The boys older than 15 and charged with wrongdoing are treated like criminals and held behind bars in large jail cells, sometimes twenty to a barred cell. They are called children in conflict with the law. They are rescued by Preda and others are referred by local social workers and family court judges to the Preda homes for boys.

Preda has helped thousands of youth be released from sub-human detention cells, healed and educated since 1974 when Preda first started 50 years ago. The anniversary will be celebrated on 22 February 2024 at the Preda Octagon building in Subic town. That rescue and release work continues today in the Preda therapeutic homes for boys deprived of freedom.

A total of 38 young boys were rescued this year and lived at an open Preda home in a spacious countryside home in Nagbayan, Castillejos, Zambales. There, they enjoy a life free from abuse and are accepted, encouraged, reaffirmed and given emotional therapy to deal with the pains of childhood suffering, rejection, punishment and abuse. Now, they have a happier life and a better chance in life through Preda that provides education, therapy and values formation, sports, fun and games in an open center where the dignity of every child is respected.

Preda New Dawn home for boys in Cebu

There are now 28 boys in conflict with the law in the Preda New Dawn Home in Liloan, Cebu. These youth have pending court cases and have been released from the severe subhuman jail conditions in government youth detention centers. There, they suffer greatly. Preda convinces judges to use the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Law to release them and transfer them to the Preda home for boys in Liloan, Cebu. Here, they have a new life, with therapy, education and a great chance to start life anew. The Preda aftercare program looks after them also. The boys are very grateful for the love and concern and financial support of  Aktionsgruppe based in Germany.

Preventive education

The work raising awareness of human rights and children’s rights to prevent abuse and exploitation continue to be implemented after the pause during the lock-downs of Covid years. Now, it is back and in January a new phase of this important program is focused on teachers, students and their parents to prevent child abuse and encourage children to report victimization.

The seminars teach the correct procedure for parents and teachers to follow when they suspect or know of child abuse anywhere. Preda conducts these seminars and gets the audience actively involved. Some of the Preda scholars who are victim-survivors of abuse are guest speakers. They freely tell their stories and give great advice from the personal experiences of abuse and human trafficking. Several thousand will be receiving these seminars until April 2024. Donors who understand the need for preventive education are encouraged to donate to support these free seminars for duty-bearers.

Preda Fair Trade

Preda Fair Trade helped 561 indigenous Aeta farmers this year in Zambales. After 3 years of almost no harvest due to climate change, there was a better organic mango harvest of Pico mango this year. Thirty-five tons of fresh, organic pico mangoes were gathered in June. The project has achieved the EU standard for an Organic Certificate issued by Control Union. The farmers got paid high prices and dividends. In addition, Preda Fair Trade implemented six major development projects in the villages, providing water supply with long hoses from the uphill source to stainless tanks in the villages,

The German development agency Giz provided funds and donations for rice and groceries, farm tools and 5,000 grafted mango saplings and 2,000 calamansi and rambutan saplings were distributed.

The famous fair trade shop in Eisenstadt, Austria collected donations and provided funds for the planting of 2,000 mango saplings. The fair trade shop in Eisenstadt is a strong regular supporter of the Preda children’s home for girls.

The Canadian agency, Rainbow of Hope Canada, provided funds for the education of the Aeta women and children, mango saplings and village water projects. The Aeta children also gained increased  awareness about their rights, especially the importance of protecting women and children from early and forced marriages that is now prohibited by the new law forbidding “child marriage.” Preda also helped lobby for the anti-child marriage law.
 
Preda Fair Trade in Mindanao has helped many small farmers in the Preda farmers association by paying high prices for their carabao mangoes. These are processed intoto dried mangos by the Preda fair trade project and the Preda fair trade distribution of cash bonus (dividend) payments and school supplies are given to many families. Preda dried mangoes are available around Ireland, the UK, and in German supermarkets and World Shops.

Preventing child trafficking and abuse

Some donor families set up their own scholarship fund with Preda for a deceased family member like the Jessica Smith Fund in memory of a lost daughter, the Bob & Kathrine Scholarship Fund and the Cullen Family Scholar Support Fund. Email shaycullen@PROTECTED to set up your own fund and save a vulnerable, impoverished teenager in danger of being trafficked. Then, she and her children will be educated to break the cycle of poverty through education. All scholars get special support training and seminars on better living and value formation for life improvement. These Funds for marginalized youth at risk are supporting 29 teenagers, mostly girls, who were vulnerable prey for human traffickers and pedophiles. They were found and rescued from the danger and are now in college, some in high school, receiving monthly educational assistance. Other teenagers that graduated from Preda home for abused children are also in high school and college.

Preda’s advocacy work and cooperation

Preda advocates children’s rights and the human rights of all through social media- Preda Foundation facebook and website www.preda.org and articles are published in The Manila Times on Sunday (The Sunday Times) and other magazines and newspapers. You can be a part of this by, besides donating and supporting the rescue and recovery of trafficked and abused children, forwarding this newsletter to your friends and contacts. Send it to your local newspaper, they might write about the needs of children.

This year, Preda maintained its status as a registered, licensed and accredited social welfare and development agency by complying with hundreds of indicators in a tedious evaluation process by the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Preda is one of only two non-government organizations in Central Luzon that is currently accredited by the Philippine Council for NGO Certification. This means that Preda has very high standards of NGO operation and management in fulfilling its services for children.

Thank you for reading this and we wish you a blessed Christmas and a New Year filled with positive happy experiences.

Fr. Shay Cullen, Francis Bermido Jr. and the whole Preda team