“Excuse me, may I interview you? It’s questions about your life. When did you get married? How old were you when you had your first baby? How many children do you have?” These are some of the questions that I asked mothers that I interviewed last year for my job with Ugat ng Kalusugan.

I started to work at Ugat ng Kalusugan in June 2009. At first, I really didn’t know exactly what I would be doing. I was a teacher, and a young mother myself, but I didn’t know much about reproductive health, or public health, or working within the human rights framework. There was a lot I didn’t know but I was eager and excited to learn and grow into my job. At that time I was the only employee of Ugat ng Kalusugan, but I didn’t feel sad. That June was the first month that Ugat ng Kalusugan started to operate in the Philippines, (in Palawan specifically).

My former teacher, Susan Evangelista, became my boss and she started explaining more to me the work of Ugat ng Kalusugan. She explained that we needed to conduct needs assessments and start finding out the health and nutritional needs of women, especially young mothers. She asked me to start conducting research in a community called Golden Valley, which is also where I lived. I looked for and interviewed women and girls who got married and had babies when they were still at a young age, mostly 15 to 19 years old. They all said to me: “It is too hard to have a baby when you are still young. You don’t know what you should do if the baby starts crying.” One of the moms said that when her baby was crying she would just put a bottle of milk in front of it because she didn’t know what else to do.

Two months went by and then Ami and Marcus came to Palawan. And then we were three! We began our work. We looked into different places where people needed special attention. We went to a community called Bagong Silang and conducted interviews about people’s lives. Families there are huge and we also learned that three to four families all lived in one house. Many of the residents there live very hard lives. But, Bagong Silang residents are so lucky because they have energetic barangay officials who are supportive of them and who help them so much. We investigated other places including a community called Pulang Lupa. We conducted in–depth surveys with all the households in Pulang Lupa and we realized they really needed our help and attention. This is where I realized that they all really needed the services of Ugat ng Kalusugan.

Because residents in Pulang Lupa have very little money and education and food, and don’t have any health workers or Barangay officials near them, we selected Pulang Lupa as our first project site. At first, I was like a stranger to the residents of Pulang Lupa and I didn’t know many of them individually. But now I know nearly everyone by name, and I consider many of the moms we work with to be my friends. When we began our work, we made a plan for the moms and for the kids of the community. We held two sessions per week for women and children and also had two Saturdays a month for our extra Nutritional Support Program. Ami and I taught the moms, and we had a part-time teacher who handled the kids.

Looking back now, I cant believe that so many months have already passed, and now I am celebrating my first anniversary at Ugat ng Kalusugan. I never imagined that I would do so many positive things. I’ve met and gained the trust of many different people. I do a lot of lesson plans for the sessions for the moms. I’ve learned a lot! In a nutshell, I have evolved and I am still evolving! We didn’t have a lot of experience when we started and I am so glad that all the moms who attended our sessions trusted us and believed in us.

Pulang Lupa is just the first place where we reached our hands out — there will be more communities! And as we wrap up our work with moms in Pulang Lupa and transfer to another place where we can extend our assistance, Pulang Lupa will always be a part of my life. The memories and the experiences I’ve had there will stay with me. And I know I will continue to learn more from wherever we work next!