March 13, 2024 | Disaster Response

Relief that sustains dreams

Five ways Unbound’s Critical Needs Fund helps families sustain their dreams in times of unexpected hardship

By Kati Burns Mallows

The ability to successfully pursue one’s goals and dreams is inevitably tied to one’s life circumstances.

Though Unbound believes in the inherent potential that lies in all individuals to lift themselves out of poverty, the path to a brighter future is riddled with steep obstacles, the result of situations often beyond their control.

Lack of access to quality education, nutrition, clean water, sanitation and sustainable income opportunities, poor health care systems, inadequate public works and infrastructure, country conflict and little existence of social support systems are just some of those potential situations.

Unbound sponsorship gives goal-oriented families a leg up in securing education, obtaining necessities and creating sustainable incomes, but when unexpected crises arise, families often lack a personal safety net.

When this happens, the only thing that stands between destruction of the headway they’ve made in improving their situations and being able to continue realizing their dreams is Unbound’s Critical Needs Fund.

Critical Needs Fund provides disaster relief and much more


In 2023, Unbound distributed $1.28 million in critical needs funding to program offices throughout the 17 countries served by the organization.

According to Unbound’s vice president of international programs, Melissa Velazquez, critical needs support is distributed to local program teams who select families that will receive assistance, as well as the amount of support given, based on the most critical needs in their communities.

“The wonderful thing is that all sponsored children, elders, scholars and their families have access to this vital safety net because of their connection to Unbound,” Velazquez said.

Though the Critical Needs Fund is certainly used in times of natural disasters — such as recovery efforts after Typhoon Doksuri hit the Philippines in August 2023 — it also provides essential support for various other, sometimes little known, situations, like health emergencies, essential home repairs, the loss of a family member or lost income from small businesses impacted by COVID-19.

In Peru, Unbound program coordinator Jael Lopez said families can apply for the fund, but those families whose needs are of the utmost urgency are put first. Parent leaders from the program help evaluate which cases have the most need.

“The perspective provided by the families who are helping evaluate the cases has been very beneficial,” Lopez said. “With the sponsored community integrated into the [selection] process, it helps reinforce feelings of mutual support and solidarity.”

In Ecuador, Unbound program coordinator Martha Romero said families that receive assistance from the Critical Needs Fund feel that donors, despite not knowing them personally, are truly standing in solidarity with sponsored individuals and their families. One initiative in Ecuador that the Critical Needs Fund supports is the “Transforming My House” program that aids families in obtaining dignified housing by helping them install sanitary bathrooms, patch roofs or put in wiring for electricity.

“This [the Critical Needs Fund] is a great motivator for families to keep moving forward with their lives despite the difficulties they are going through,” Romero said. “For example, by being able to improve their small businesses, they can provide for their homes and cover the basic needs for their children to live in dignity and to continue building their goals.”

With the Critical Needs Fund, Romero said, Unbound is a place where dreaming remains possible.

Here are just five ways the Critical Needs Fund was used to help families from around the world keep their dreams for a better future alive.

One

A home leans precariously over a floodwall in the Philippines after floodwaters from Typhoon Mawar in 2023 caused the ground to erode. Disaster response during situations like these typically necessitates distribution of aid from the Unbound Critical Needs Fund to help affected sponsored families recover.

This [the Critical Needs Fund] is a great motivator for families to keep moving forward with their lives despite the difficulties they are going through.

— Martha Romero, Unbound Ecuador program coordinator

Providing safe, secure housing with the Critical Needs Fund


At 96 years old, sponsored elder Lolita of Unbound’s Quezon program in the Philippines said she has but one dream left for her life — to ensure her children and grandchildren have their future needs attended to.

This was what motivated her to approach Unbound program staff about assistance from the Critical Needs Fund to repair her family’s home. Having worked from the time she was 12 years old at such jobs as a maid, laundress, waitress and scrap materials collector, Lolita had never had a very stable living environment.

The roof of her small home — cobbled together from used materials — had become weak and was allowing rain into the home during bad weather. With just $277 from the Critical Needs Fund, Lolita’s family was able to purchase galvanized iron and a drainage system for the roof of their home, the first improvements made to the home in 41 years.

“Thank you so much for helping me,” Lolita said about the assistance. “I will not be in fear anymore that rainwater will enter our home from our roof and [get] me wet at night.”

One

Sponsored elder Lolita is the mother of seven children and currently shares her home in the Philippines with her youngest daughter and two grandchildren. The Critical Needs Fund assistance she received also paid for the labor needed to fix the roof of her home, which now allows her family to live in a safer, more sanitary environment.

Supporting sustainable livelihood development with the Critical Needs Fund


Angelique, mother of sponsored child Divine, 8, remembers a time not so long ago when her family had trouble buying food to eat, couldn’t afford to send Divine to school and were in danger of being evicted from the home they rented in Rwanda.

During that time, Angelique was a casual laborer, working for others for less than $1 USD a day, but she knew she had to find a way to get ahead. With just $100 awarded to her from the Critical Needs Fund, Angelique began a small business selling and trading onions.

In less than 18 months — combined with Divine’s sponsorship benefits and small loans from Unbound’s savings and loan programs — Angelique was able to increase the value of her business to $250 USD. She has begun to build her family a small home and was able to enroll her daughter in a private school. The family can now afford two full meals a day and health insurance.

“It’s beyond my imagination to hear that someone who hasn’t met me [would] support me, and that gives me the motivation,” Angelique said about Unbound sponsors and donors.

Angelique’s next goal is to expand her business to achieve wholesale status within the next five years.

One

With help from the Critical Needs Fund, Angelique became her own boss, opening an onion trading and selling business in Rwanda, which is now helping lead her family beyond poverty.

Creating safer, more sanitary living environments with the Critical Needs Fund


For more than 10 years, Marissa had to choose between her family having regular meals or sanitary living conditions. The mother of five and her husband, who is a construction worker, chose to feed their children.

The home in the Philippines where 26-year-old Marissa grew up and that her own family now lives in did not have a comfort room (bathroom). To relieve themselves, the family asked permission to use their neighbors’ comfort rooms, but they felt like a burden, and oftentimes chose instead to relieve themselves in vacant outdoor lots near their house.

In 2022, after Marissa’s family completed the survey for Unbound’s Goal Orientation Powered by Poverty Stoplight, local staff realized the family would be better positioned to focus on reaching their “non-poverty” goals with access to their own comfort room.

Granting the family aid from the Critical Needs Fund, Marissa’s husband spent $215 USD on supplies and installed a bathroom in their home in just 10 days.

Now the family has access to their own toilet to use and a shower to bathe, improving their living situation and allowing them to focus their efforts on other goals.

“We are very happy,” Marissa said. “Now that we have our own comfort room, it changes our lifestyle a lot. We now have the freedom to use it whenever we [need].”

After receiving assistance from the Critical Needs Fund, Marissa’s husband, Chris, installed the toilet and shower himself. The floor of the new comfort room is cement, but the family hopes to tile it one day.

Pictured front, left to right, at their home in the Philippines are siblings Chris Jr., 2, sponsored child Maricris, 10, Carolyn, 7, and Marian, 9, while in the back is Marissa along with Chris, who is holding 3-month-old Ryzen.

Boosting a current small business with the Critical Needs Fund


When Hermenegilda and her former husband divorced almost 10 years ago, the 41-year-old found herself entirely financially responsible for the welfare of three of her four younger children, and she remembers her heart hurting.

But instead of giving in to the fear of the unknown, she got to work, enlisting her brother-in-law to teach her how to better use a manual loom and, eventually, building a business out of her home in Guatemala making traditional fabrics.

Seeking to take her business to the next level, Hermenegilda applied for the Unbound Guatemala’s “entrepreneurship program,” and was awarded assistance from the Critical Needs Fund to purchase a second loom and raw materials, such as threads. With the help of her oldest children, Hermenegilda now makes and sells enough of her fabrics each week — around $40 USD a cut — to provide for her family.

About her motivation to keep pushing forward, Hermenegilda said, “I am fighting [working hard] for them [her children]. My dream is for my children to graduate [school].”

Hermenegilda operates one of the manual looms outside of the family’s home in Guatemala where she fills orders to make cuts of fabric, the livelihood that sustains her family. Hermenegilda is pictured with her children in the background, including Mario, 17, Ana, 5, and sponsored child Emiliano, 13.

Hermenegilda winds the thread that will be used as a background to shape the figures in her cut of fabric.

Between Hermenegilda and her two sons, the family produces five to six cuts of fabric per week, selling them for around $40 a piece in the community.

Overcoming a disaster with the Critical Needs Fund


In the spring of 2023, 19-year-old sponsored youth Maria Liezel (who goes by Zel) was working in town when she got a call that her family’s hut was on fire. Her 10 younger siblings were home alone, and she was two hours away.

By the time she arrived in tears, neighbors had gotten her siblings out of the fire, but the family’s home — including 10 other homes on the block — had burned to the ground. The culprit of the fire was suspected to have been a “kalan de uling,” or a traditional earthenware stove that uses charcoal or wood for burning.

Staff with Unbound Philippines quickly jumped into action, providing the family with funds to purchase clothes and other necessities. The family received $500 from the Critical Needs Fund later to rebuild their home on the banks of Laguna Lake. Built from a combination of bamboo and plywood by Zel’s father and brothers, the new home is the sturdiest home the family has every lived in.

“It’s [the Critical Needs Fund] a big blessing for us because without it … we might be living in the streets right now,” Zel said.

With the passing of her mother two years ago, Zel is largely responsible for the care of her siblings, but still has dreams of studying to be a police officer one day. The support of Unbound and her sponsor encourages her to keep pushing forward despite the challenges she faces.

A view of the street in the Philippines where Zel’s family’s first home was located before the fire. Many residents in the area are informal settlers, building their homes out of scrap material that is often easily combustible.

After the fire, there was nothing left of Zel’s family’s belongings. It’s thought that the fire started after an earthenware stove was left unattended. 

With help from the Critical Needs Fund, the family built their new home on another part of Laguna Lake, away from the neighborhood where the fire occurred. Here, Zel and five of her siblings are pictured on the porch of their new home with their father, Magno.

Due to financial reasons, only seven of Zel’s 10 siblings can study right now. Zel acts as the mother figure for her younger siblings, cooking, cleaning and helping them with their homework. Pictured left to right are Zel, Emmanuel, Pamela, Carmela, Loriefe and Rachelle.

Despite having to work to support the family right now, Zel is determined to receive an education and plans to return to school soon to study criminology. 

Help more Unbound families sustain their dreams during times of hardship; donate to the Critical Needs Fund today.

Regional reporters Oscar Tuch, Nickson Ateku and Teejay Cabrera contributed photos and information for this story.