THE WORKSITE

Our goal is to support children affected by Typhoon Pepito by providing safe, resilient, and dignified learning environments across Catanduanes Island. Many schools in the region continue to face poor infrastructure conditions, limiting children’s access to quality education.

Our projects involve constructing a 2-classroom building that uses flexible partitions to create a total of 4 learning spaces. This will impact 128 students and 9 staff from Kindergarten to 6th grade. Along with the new building construction, we will build a canteen, site conditioning, and a WASH proposal. We will use CBFT (Cement Bamboo Frame Technology), a sustainable, cost-effective, and disaster-resilient system that also promotes livelihoods in the communities we serve.

In addition to the construction project, AH&H aims to broaden its impact in the area by conducting training and engagement projects to empower local communities. By engaging local authorities, we will implement Disaster Risk Reduction training to increase DRR knowledge and best practices within the local community. We will collaborate with Streetlight to provide training and expertise to schools on topics related to Child Protection.

Comprehensive construction training for the site team and local workers will be provided in collaboration with our local partner Base Bahay. Additionally, we will offer training on a comprehensive maintenance manual for the new CBFT building to the local community to ensure ownership.

We will be starting our days early! Breakfast will be available from 6:00 AM, and we will leave for the site at 6:45 AM. The Philippines is very hot, so we will start work early - at 7:00 AM. Lunch typically starts at noon and then the work continues between 1 and 4 pm. We also factor in some 10-15 minute water breaks throughout the day to ensure everyone stays hydrated and gets some rest because the work could be intense.  

After you return home from the work site, you will have a chance to unwind, relax, and reflect on your day as a part of our nightly team meeting. After that, we’ll serve dinner. Every All Hands and Hearts base has a curfew and quiet hours in place to ensure we all get enough rest before the next working day. Please remember that they are non-negotiable and apply both to staff and volunteers. We are taking our work very seriously, so we expect that you will understand and obey the rules to help us make this program a successful one!

Take a look at the daily schedule here! 

The following pictures are examples of work done on various All Hands and Hands programs worldwide. They were selected to resemble the work that you are likely to perform in the Philippines.