A big bang for Bam Aquino / Felicidad Sy center for kids

Social entrepreneur Paulo Benigno “Bam’’ Aquino, a nephew and look-alike of the late Ninoy Aquino, has been invited to speak at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The meeting will be held in Davos, Switzerland from Jan. 25 to 29 and Bam is scheduled to speak Jan. 26, during the Forum’s session on “Learning From The Frontier.”

The title of the session is suggestive of innovative ideas and concepts adapted by social entrepreneurs and advocates of micro business to promote and advance transformational changes in the social and economic areas of the communities where they operate.

Bam is president of Micro Ventures, Inc. (MVI) and, with his friend Mark Ruiz, is co-founder of the Hapinoy Community Store Program that has gained local and international recognition for its micro entrepreneurship advocacy. The program has been training sari-sari store owners, mostly mothers, on how to ensure the efficiency, sustainability and profitability of their small businesses.

MVI also provides loans for the sari-sari store owners through its financing arm, the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD). We are told that CARD has already extended loans to some 1.3 million borrowers so far and that, of this number, a near-perfect 99.7 percent have repaid their loans.

 “There’s no greater proof than this, that the poor and the ordinary folks highly value their credibility and are truly credit-worthy,” says Bam.

The Hapinoy Community Store Program is now undertaking a nationwide expansion drive in cooperation with local government units, NGOs and other social entrepreneur groups. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Department of Labor and Employment have expressed interest in the program and are now in talks with the Hapinoy people for possible partnerships.             

“We now have a membership of more than 8,000 sari-sari store owners and these are being serviced by the more than 150 Hapinoy Community Stores that MVI has set up throughout the country. The expansion drive is aimed at attaining our goal of establishing a network of 100,000 small retail outlets nationwide,” Bam said.

Bam and Mark had been awarded the Forum’s Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship as Asia Social Entrepreneurs of the Year for 2011. In Davos, Bam will join a panel of experts from the business sector, the academe and the health care industry who will share their experiences in innovative social transformation.

Being a model undertaking in social entrepreneurship, it seems obvious that the Hapinoy Community Store Program fits quite well into the WEF’s theme of “The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models” for its 2012 Annual Meeting.

The World Economic Forum is a yearly gathering of leading thinkers that, for the past 40 years, “has provided an unrivalled platform for leaders from all walks of life to shape the global agenda at the start of the year.”

The Forum is attended by the top personalities in the political, social and economic arenas of the world. They include chief executives of the Forum’s 1,000 partner and member companies, heads of international organizations, pioneers in technology, political leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) nations and other relevant countries, representatives from key stakeholder groups, social entrepreneurs, young global leaders, experts representing the WEF’s Global Agenda Council and media, spiritual and cultural leaders.

Another indication of just how prestigious the World Economic Forum is that attendance to its annual meetings is strictly by invitation only.

There are actually two Filipinos invited to the Davos conference. The other one is Tony Meloto of Gawad Kalinga, an organization that has won global acclaim for its unique approach of building homes for the poor, where the intended beneficiaries and unpaid volunteers work together to build the homes.

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 Year 2011 ended with SM Foundation inaugurating the 68th Felicidad T. Sy Wellness Center in Tarlac. Felicidad T. Sy Wellness Centers are sprouting nationwide as centers for the elderly which SM builds for use of senior citizens, centers for children, and hospices for the terminally ill. These facilities are found in Pampanga, Iloilo Lucena, Quezon City and Davao City.

Adding to its cap is SM Foundation’s recently opened Pediatric Hospice and Palliative Center in a special wing of the Lung Center of the Philippines.

The facility,, built through the initiative of SM Foundation, Lung Center of the Philippines and Philippine Cancer society, was inaugurated November 29 last year. It is the first and only government pediatric hospice and palliative care center in the country.

Located at the Lung Center of the Philippines, the center aims  to improve the quality of life of child patients and  their families facing problems associated with life-threatening illnesses through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification, accurate assessment, and treatment of pain. The center hopes to collaborate and work with other agencies to improve quality of life by advancing  hospice and palliative care program, education and research.

 The center will be co-managed by the Philippine Cancer Society, through executive director, Dr. Rachel Rosario. SM Foundation will undertake regular maintenance of the facility and update equipment. It  will also be enroll led in the Gamot Para sa Kapwa program of SM, and Kapwa Ko, Mahal Ko.

Dr. Sergio Andres, head of the hospice and palliative care center,  said medical practitioners, like himself, take care of child patients with advanced and incurable diseases, but the family is greatly involved in the care caring of  patients. Which is why the center offers psychosocial sessions to teach families how to cope with the sadness and pain of  “termination of  life on earth.”

The center is colorfully painted with murals,  has a fully equipped playroom with a TV set, DVDs, books, and offers  activities for children while waiting  for their  chemotherapy or other pain-management sessions, hospital rooms for palliative sessions, a  doctors’ room, a nurse station and receiving room for parents or family members.

 Connie Angeles, SM Foundation executive director for health and medical programs, said the government-attached hospice is the first in the country.

Dr. Anjanette Reyes-De Leon, who heads the pediatric center of the Lung Center, said cancer is a formidable contributor to childhood morality here and abroad. In the Philippines the annual incidence of cancer for children aged 0-14 is 100 per million population — the second highest in the Asian region after Japan.           

Former Senator Orly Mercado, now with Kapwa Ko, Mahal Ko, was guest speaker during the hospice-palliative center’s  simple turn-over ceremonies. He said children, being resilient, “teach us how to face incurable illnesses — tinuturuan tayo kung papano harapin ang sakit. Hospice care is giving care to those who need care.”

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My e-mail: dominimt20002yahoo.com