ILOILO CITY — Around 250 runners early Sunday morning joined the “Run for the Mountains 2018”, a fun-run activity to help Indigenous Peoples (IPs) in Iloilo.
Spearheaded by the Junior Chamber International (JCI) Ilang-Ilang-Iloilo Chapter, the fun-run is composed of two categories, 5 and 10-kilometer run.
The participants are composed of students, teachers and representatives from the different government agencies among them the Bureau of Fire Protection, Philippine Coast Guard and Philippine National Police.
The proceeds of the activity will benefit IP families in the village of Lanit, Jaro, Iloilo City through its “Langit sa Lanit” program, according to Lenore Angeline Divinagracia, President of JCI Iloilo Ilang-ilang.
Divinagracia said that the around PHP59,000 fund gathered during the event will be used to provide native chicken production to the IPs as their livelihood.
“According to a study, if they (IPs) do not have income in a particular place, they really roam around in the city or wherever they want,” she said.
Divinagracia recalled that the IP community in Lanit was also the beneficiary of their biggest project, providing the group 25 units of houses that were turned over February of last year dubbed “Home Sweet Home.”
The PHP10-million housing project was realized in partnership with the Iloilo City government, Base Bahay Foundation, Inc. (BBFI), Homeless People’s Federation of the Philippines (HPFP), Hilti Foundation (HF), Western Institute of Technology (WIT), Ati Tribes Mission, Inc. (ATMI), among other private partners.
The BBFI has contributed PHP6 million for the housing while other partners contributed to raise PHP4 million additional fund, Divinagracia said.
“Since we already provided them with houses we want them to have livelihood so they would really stay in their community,” she said.
“We are here to guide them and to monitor them maybe quarterly to check the progress of their livelihood,” she added.
The first 50 finishers of the fun run received medals.
Divinagracia said that they have more than 400 registrants but only 250 have actually run during the event. Of the 250 runners, 22 of them are IPs, she said. (Cindy Ferrer/PNA)
