Who We Are, The Story of Learn Ubuntu Org

14. Visayas Outreach

Our Visayas relief Program, described here is an outline of our current efforts to bring educational and job opportunities to the Visayas area of the Philippines.
Currently our base of operation in the Philippines is centered in the San Carlos City, 6127, Negros Occidental Philippines. For those not yet familiar with the Philippines, the Visayas area includes the geographical location of the middle Philippines Arpeggio of islands.
	Shown on the left is the Visayas area of the Philippines
Shown here is the location of Sipaway Island, just off the coast of San Carlos City, Negros Occidental, Philippines.
	Here we see Sipaway Island as viewed from the Port City of San Carlos. It is approximately 7 killimoters long and about 2 kilimmeters wide.
Prior to the 1980's this was a booming city largely due to the production of sugar. Unfortunately the sugar mill closed in the early 80's leaving the area without any significant anchor industry to provide employment for the inhabitants of San Carlos City. All that remains today of this once booming industry are a few furnace structures from the once great factory. In an all too familar story of Philippine corruption, one of the owners of the factory took all the funds and ran away.
Almost 30 years later the area is still struggling to make a comeback from one greedy deed that forcd the area into abject poverty.
	Shown on the left is the Port of San Carlos City, which has recently been going through many renovations for security and to make it more tourist friendly. Cebu has been the mainstay of tourism for the Visayas for years but San Carlos and Sipaway Island, pictured below are slowly becoming the new tourist stop in the Visayas.
Recently the island has been fitted to receive city water supply from San Carlos city via an under channel pipeline. They also now have power 24 hours a day due to a new solar power project on that island.
There is a resort on Sipaway, known as Whispering Palms which offers a nice relaxing atmosphere for European and American Travelers at a very reasonable rate for accommodations. It also offers employment opportunities for inhabitants of Sipaway Island. They also have a very nice Scuba Diving Facility and restaurant there. Local resident can obtain a day pass to enjoy the facility for the day for a reasonable rate.
	With all of the improvements to Sipaway island one thing we are hoping to preserve is the housing for the residents who have lived there for many generations. Many of them do not own the property they reside on and one of our concerns is that the expanding opportunity of prime beach front real estate could possible force many of these people out, over the years to come. Many of them live in homes that cannot withstand the occasional typhoons that strike the area.
	Most of these residents currently depend on local fishing for their survival. This industry has been on the wain for several years as many of the fish have been depleted by larger industrial fishing fleets.
Many of these children occupy themselves daily by swimming and helping their parents with chores.They are all simply wonderful children and deserve a better chance.
	Unfortunately the homes these children live in cannot stand up to the occasional typhoons that hit this area.
Fortunately most typhoons do not make direct landfall on this area but when they do the destruction is devastating. As shown on the right and below the simple native structures of the Sipaway inhabitants are no match for a storm like Yolanda that hit this area a few years ago.
	Small native houses are blown into each other leaving families and children homeless.
One of our goals is to provide a community center that can withstand the perils of a storm like Yolanda for the inhabitants of Sipaway.
	We can setup an emergency communications system that can also be used for educational course delivery during non disaster times
The current community center could be expanded and fortifid to better meet the occasional emergency needs of this small islands inhabitants.
	Another idea we are trying to promote is to find a way to make low cost funding available for current Sipaway inhabitants so that they can afford to own theor land and build a masonary home that would withstand the typhoones that can hiot this area. A funding system, based on the movie It's a Wonderful Life could be started with some seed funding and the community owned bank - coop could eventually be a self sustaining source of funds to provide low interest loans to Sipaway Residents. As the initial members of the coop pay their loans those funds can be recycled to offer opportunities to other to do the same.
By working with local education and organizations we are hoping to bring new technology in education and opportunities to this area.