For the last few years my mom, Susan Evangelista, has talked about starting an organization for women and children. The specifics would change; sometimes we would be talking orphanages, sometimes a shelter for abused women. But although the specifics weren’t in place, the dream was there.

Meanwhile, my brilliant younger sister, Ami Evangelista Swanepoel, finished a double Master’s degree- Master of International Affairs and Master of Public Health in Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Mailman School of Public Health. She found a good job in New York after finishing her degrees but it wasn’t really the hands-on type of job that she had hoped to have.

One day she was speaking with my mom about her desire to work in the field, and my mom suddenly said, “Why don’t you and Marcus (her husband) come and help me start my non-profit organization?” My mom expected Ami to say, “You’re crazy mom. We can’t just leave our jobs and move to Palawan!” But the opposite happened. She and her husband jumped at the idea! And as they say, the rest is history…

My mom and Ami formed both a US and local counterpart for their organization which is called “Roots of Health” and “Ugat ng Kalusugan” in the Philippines.  Yesterday I attended the first meeting of the Roots of Health staff with their Advisory Board, of which I am a member. It was the first time we all gathered together but all the work actually began more than a year ago, after that initial email/phone exchange between my mom and my sister. My sister and her husband have since moved to Palawan to work directly with my mom. They have raised funds, developed their vision and mission statements, identified who or what their target is with their organization, started working with women and children in one of the poorest communities in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, tweaked their goals here and there depending on the needs they saw, and finally, on March 9, 2010, gathered their Advisory Board in Puerto Princesa to discuss all that has been done, and see how we can help them as they work toward their goals.

I am officially a member of the local Board of Directors as well as the Advisory Board. I have mostly been a cheerleader for my mom and Ami; and an occasional errand girl. But living in Manila made me feel removed and far away from all they were doing. This meeting was just what I needed to pick me up from the fringes and put me down in the middle of the action! Hearing about how they had chosen the community they work in, the workshops they have with the women in the area, how they are expanding to start teaching children as well, their nutritional support programs and all their adventures and misadventures working in this area transported me from my position as a fan to that of a player. Visiting “Pulang Lupa” (the area at which they work) with another Advisory Board member, Carlos Celdran, after the meeting was the icing on the cake. It was too hot for too many of the residents to be out, but we met some of the key people Roots of Health has been working with. We saw some of the really malnourished children who still gave us friendly smiles, met a mom who is pregnant with her seventh child and who was carrying her 3 year old who looked more like an 8 month old baby, saw the landfill that is practically on top of this community, gazed at the only home – on top of the hill no less – that has water which is sold by the bucket to the other residents, and felt the hot sun beating down on us – an all too familiar feeling to the dedicated staff who go to this community 2 to 3 times a week.

I have been a stay at home mom for so many years now that I sometimes feel like I’ve forgotten how to work outside of the home. But part of what makes this so exciting for me is that it is still “home” in a sense. Because it isn’t only my mom and my sister who are involved in this, my dad and my brother-in-law are also very much involved with the day-to-day work of the organization. The Advisory Board, US Board and local staff members are not all family, but some are people we have known for a while; and even with newer acquaintances, there is the bond of working together for a common cause. I’m looking forward to being able to do more with Roots of Health and hope that as I do, I can inspire others to support Roots of Health as well.