In Bohol province in the Philippines, a weary mother watched as a midwife approached the rickety hospital bed where she sat. Her newborn lay feverish in a corner at the edge of the bed beside two other newborns and their mothers; one infant possibly with a rising infection. This was typical in government-owned hospitals, but for Corazon "Azon" Paras, the attending midwife, it did not seem fair that mothers and their infants should be in this plight.
Santa Rosa City, located close to Metro Manila, was in the headlines in 2009 because of the high number of H1N1 flu cases: 37, including 1 fatality. The city also registered high incidence of diarrhea among children under 5. Because of this, the city government decided to implement a campaign to promote the practice of handwashing, which has been shown to reduce the incidence of diarrhea by more than 45 percent. The USAID Philippine Sanitation Alliance assisted the city in developing the campaign using the USAID 10-Step Promotion Toolkit to improve hygiene and sanitation as a guide.
The lure is steady employment and a better life, but the result is often months or years of physical and emotional abuse. It's a modern form of slavery called trafficking — the use of fraud or coercion to recruit, transport, buy and sell human beings — and it entraps as many as four million people each year.
Mayor Aniceto P. Lopez Jr. of Maasim, a town in Sarangani province in Mindanao, had a dream: he wanted his people to become economically productive and lead peaceful lives. He knew that the area’s abundant natural resources could play a major role in helping him achieve this dream. However, the lush forests that once covered the area had all but disappeared, and fields that could have been used for farming had instead served as a battleground between government soldiers and rebels.
In Mindanao, the second-larges island of the Philippines, the minority Muslim population has historically suffered from poverty. The 1960s witnessed the emergence of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), a militant group which fought for greater autonomy for the Muslim minority.
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