During my twenties, I spent five years living in the Philippines and it moulded me into the type of filmmaker that I am today. Now, I'm slowly editing a feature length doco about the village I lived in (crafted from 26,000+ clips captured over 13 years), and arranging university scholarships for the village teenagers. If you would like to get involved with sponsoring a student in exchange for a discount on your video, check out the story and videos below.
The Story
This story is now thirteen years and counting, so I’ll try and condense it to the broad strokes... with short videos via the blue links for visual aid... In 2011 while I was at film school, Daniel Kuzeff who we call ‘Cheese’ raised 200k to house families in the Philippines who lost their homes to a typhoon. After hearing about his initiative, I joined Cheese on a trip to the village in 2013 to film the laying of the first brick. We met the would-be villagers and Aida Vergara, the local matriarch who donated her land for the village to be built on… and experiencing their way of life rearranged my brain cells in a way that I never thought imaginable. Cheese had a grandiose plan, to start a high school immersion program and bring TWENTY TWO Aussie schools to the village in the following year. The students would raise additional funds to build more homes, then come over and lay a few bricks and experience the culture. I jumped on board and we got a few mates involved and formed an organisation, and after realising how big our dreams were as young whippersnappers in our early twenties, we just settled on bringing one school group over… and that school group ended up being my old high school in Bendigo. They raised 5k, built another home and it was epic!
So we continued with that for several years, got another school involved and a couple of times per year we would come and visit the village with a fresh batch of bright eyed teenagers… and the village kept expanding. It was a happy picture… but somehow I was 25, living in Melbourne and depressed (cue the sad back story music from The Voice). In search of answers and solutions, I decided to move to the village and eat rice three times a day on a more long term basis. So that’s what I did.
I only planned on living there for one year, but ended up staying for five. It was the ultimate immersion, facilitating school groups, managing construction projects, gallivanting around in boats, learning another language, teaching the kids how to make movies and meeting my supreme overlord Regil, who is the first point of harsh criticism on all of my edits. Needless to say, it set my mind on a pleasantly unexpected straight and narrow.
Nowadays, living back in Australia, we try and get back to the village once per year to catch up with the gang and check in with how things are going. Cheese is now running his school program independently and Regil and I continue to search for university scholarships to raise the village up through education. I’ve known all of these budding uni students since they were little kids, so helping them to get the best possible start in their careers is very important to me. Have yourself a gander below if you would like to get involved and I’ll catch you in the village for a lechon fiesta!
Unlike Aussies, Filipinos can’t secure bank jobs or work in hospitality and many other industries without a tertiary qualification, so getting the kids in to uni is often key for a family to break the poverty cycle... and unfortunately the uni fees are often out of reach for a typical village family supporting 4 to 8 kids on a fisherman's income. From the Australian perspective however, we’re talking $250 to $600 per semester (depending on the course) for four years.
So far, we’ve organised 23 scholarships for kids that grew up in the village, but there will be another 50 plus kids over the next ten years who are eager to study, and we would like to get them all across the line through finding sponsors who are keen to change a life. Which feels incredibly fulfilling by the way! In the words of Dan Cahill who recently visited the village and took on two student scholarships, “This is better than winning the lottery!” after witnessing the immense, tearful reaction of young Mafi and her parents when he told them that he and his wife Jane would be sponsoring her to study engineering (fifth photo below).
One of the most rewarding parts of the process is traveling over to Bantayan Island, visiting and staying in the village, experiencing the deep connection to culture and meeting the student and family that you sponsor. Many sponsors over the years have embarked on this very raw experience, and its something that I'm happy to help you organise as well. Keep reading below to learn more about how sponsorship works and what video discounts are available.
How Sponsorship Works
In exchange for sponsoring a student, I’m offering a 10% discount on editing costs. This is one student per project (not for continued projects). So, for a project where the editing costs are $5,000, the discount I give you would be $500 - and if the university course is $250 per semester, that’s $2,000 over four years or $1,500 factoring in the discount. $7 per week! If you’re not in need of any video services but would just like to sponsor a student from the village, we’ll organise that too.
This is just raw, grass roots charity with no overheads or hidden costs. Regil and I volunteer our time to set up the relationships and communication channels between sponsors and students, and then its between you and the student to maintain the relationship and payments for the duration of the course on Whatsapp (I’ll be in the chat for guidance, questions and reminders). If you decide you would like to sponsor a student, it’s then a conversation about how much you would like to spend, and that will help to determine which student due to the varying costs of the courses.
Once a sponsor relationship is established, we’ll help the student set up a bank account so that you can send the support directly to them each semester, and they will provide you with the university receipts and their official report cards each semester. There’s various ways to send the funds, like Western Union, GCASH and my favourite, ‘Wise’. If this sounds like your cup of coconut wine, or if you would just like to come and visit the village or support the community in some other way, please get in touch via the social channels or contact details below and we’ll chat soon.
