THE BASE

The base is where you will live, eat and play during your time on the program! It is communal living at its finest. Some call it rustic, others call it home. The base is usually co-ed bunk-style dorm rooms with assorted common areas for eating and relaxing. You’ll live together, work together and eat together with your fellow volunteers — moments of privacy are rare. Please remember, we live in an area recovering from a disaster, so these facilities are not luxurious. Some would call it rustic; we call it home.

Sleeping arrangements: We offer free accommodation for all residential volunteers. We offer volunteers bunk beds in mixed dormitory rooms that accommodate between 4 and 12 people, depending on the room size. If you wish to sleep in a room occupied only by people of the same gender identity as yours, please reach out to the Volunteer Coordinator for your program or email us at philippinesrecovery@allhandsandhearts.org, and we will do our best to accommodate your request. Please, note that this might not always be possible. The sooner you let us know, the better the chances are that we will be able to arrange it.

Bunk beds will not have any bedding or mattresses provided, so you must bring your own air mattress or sleeping pad, a sleeping bag or blanket, and a pillow. You can find information on where to purchase those in the ‘local area’ section.

PLEASE NOTE: During the COVID-19 pandemic, we used to provide bedding, but we are no longer able to do it. You are responsible for bringing your own bedding (blanket, pillow, mattress), so please buy it in a local area before coming to the base. After the first month of the program start or so, there might be some mattresses/bedding left behind by departing volunteers, but we cannot guarantee that. Please contact our Volunteer Coordinator a few days before arriving at the base to ask if there are any available.

Kitchen facilities: The kitchen at our base will be equipped with basic cooking equipment such as pots, frying pans, basic utensils, cutlery, plates, cups, glasses etc. It will be available for you to use in the morning so that you can prepare your breakfast. You can also use it on your days off and in the evening if you wish to prepare your own dinner instead of the one provided. Please note that throughout the working days, the kitchen will be occupied by local cooks who will be preparing our meals, so you will have limited or no access to the kitchen during that time.

We will have a designated storage space where you can keep your food, but we ask that all food is stored in sealed containers. . We highly recommend bringing a sharpie/marker to mark your items. We do not anticipate having a refrigerator or freezer at the base for public use, so please don’t bring anything that needs to be stored at a low temperature.

Bathroom facilities: Basic toilets and showers will be available at the base for everyone to use. Sitting toilets are the most commonly used type of toilet in the Philippines, so you can anticipate having those at the base. Please keep in mind that a drainage system gets clogged a lot, so the toilet paper and any sanitary items need to be disposed of in the provided bins. We don’t provide separate bathroom facilities for women and men.

Laundry: The team works to engage community members to provide personal laundry service a couple of times a week. It costs $50pesos per kilo (volunteers must cover that cost themselves). We will also have hand-washing laundry stations available on the base. However, if water shortages occur, this could be temporarily restricted. Please be mindful that we will be located in a relatively remote area which still struggles with the aftermath of the disaster, so this kind of inconvenience might occur occasionally.

We recommend that you bring biodegradable washing detergent to help minimize our impact on the natural environment surrounding the local community.

Communal space: We have a dedicated common space at the base where you will be able to spend time with other volunteers, attend daily meetings, eat your meals and participate in events. We will also have a designated well-being space for anyone who wants to spend time in a more quiet environment. Please note that consumption of alcohol, loud behavior, and loud music are not allowed in the well-being space.

Please feel free to bring along some board games, footballs, volleyballs, or any other kind of entertainment. We encourage you to consider bringing indoor activities for those times when we need to keep inside. Although we will do our best to provide some kind of items to help you enjoy your free time, we need to prioritize sourcing basics because of the tight program budget.

We do not provide WiFi on base. Most resorts around here offer wifi and is where we tend to spend most of our time off!

If you regularly need a computer or phone for personal use, we recommend bringing your own. If you require regular internet access, please purchase your own SIM card and data pack before arriving on base. You can buy it at the airport (Manila, Cebu, Tacloban), in some local resellers (kiosks, grocery stores) or at SIM card provider stores. There are several SIM card providers in the country, but Globe and Smart provide the best coverage in our local area. Here you can read an extensive guide to getting a SIM card in the Philippines.

Please make sure your phone is unlocked. Otherwise, the local sim card will not work on your phone.

In the Philippines, the power sockets are of type A and B. The standard voltage is 220V, and the standard frequency is 60Hz. We have occasional power outages. If necessary, please ensure you purchase a power adapter to charge your electrical items. Power outlets are limited, and we currently have 2 or 3 sockets per room. Solar chargers and power banks are ideal.

We provide three meals a day, six days per week - on each working day. There will be no meals provided on your day off. Although the menu can vary depending on the availability of products in the local area, the typical meals at the AHAH base are the following:

• Breakfast: Oats, Peanut Butter, Jam, Bread, Eggs, Fruits, Tea and Instant Coffee. Products will be available for you, but you will be responsible for preparing your own breakfast before going to the worksite.

• Lunch: Local Filipino food with vegetarian options available for volunteers who request it. Rice is usually served with every meal in the Philippines. Some of the most popular Filipino dishes that you can expect to have frequently are: pancit, chicken adobo, sinigang, kare kare, bulalo, lumpia, sisig, torta. Most of those are originally prepared with meat but can be adjusted to be vegetarian.

• Dinner: Local Filipino food. In the Philippines, there is little distinction between the lunch and dinner menu. We will try to provide a different menu throughout the day, but generally, please expect similar types of dishes to be served for lunch and dinner.

Vegetarian diets can be accommodated, but vegans, celiacs and other dietary requirements will have to supplement what we can provide with items they bring or source and purchase themselves. You can store personal food items on the shelves, but there is no refrigerated personal space. You will be able to use the kitchen whenever local staff are not cooking meals for the base.

In the area where we live, you can find small shops, locally known as a sari-sari stores, that sell snacks, drinks, and fruits. Local eateries can also be found selling home-cooked Filipino meals.