People’s orgs celebrate unity and life
Davao City - Twenty young dreamers in a small town of Lanao del Sur never expected big from their 25 centavos contribution during their regular meetings.
The P80 collected from their regular contributions in 1981 has now ballooned to more than one hundred thousand pesos this year, from a mere 20 members when it started to a total of 115 individuals at the present, benefiting from the cohesion and unity of the Ittihad Multipurpose Cooperative.
The Ittihad Multipurpose Cooperative, a long-time People’s Organization, is but one of the number of POs that proved successful in promoting unity and peace in the community.
Noraniah Mipangcat, one of the original members of the organization, narrated how one group such as theirs never relied from any financial aid of big players, and yet succeeded.
“Saving 25 cents every regular meeting has brought us this far,” she said. The amount helped the group start up a soap making business that even went beyond soaps and bubbles years later.
Increased membership paved way for their other projects and services offered to the community. The cooperative then engaged into selling by building a consumer store that offers affordable goods to their members and even non-members.
Realizing the need to lift the educational level of the people in Lombayao, the cooperative then offered literacy services by the willingness of some women members to offer their time and knowledge to the out of school youth and illiterate adults.
The Ittihad holds literacy classes with 32 participants. Not just that, they also planned to have a regular Ramadan Islamic seminar to strengthen the Islamic faith of the group’s members and the community.
Believing in unity and peace, Ittihad members showed compassion and care for their brothers and sisters torn by war. In 2000 and 2003, the group involved themselves in relief distribution where they generated 11 sacks of rice and 90 kilos of dried fish. The food, generated from their members served 32 households with 100 evacuees from Butig Lanao del Sur and Munai Lanao del Norte.
Through coordination with local government units and private institutions, Ittihad provided the community with their basic needs like a multipurpose building that serves as evacuation center and Arabic school building, a water system, water pumps, farm to market roads, street lights, and Madrasa stage.
Celebrating 15 years of unity, Ittihad continues attracting more members and all the more strengthened the inter-relationship of Christian, Islamic, and Indigenous communities.
Ittihad was given due recognition in the recently held 3rd CSO Forum in Davao city where 9 different POs with inspiring successes in the search for peace and in reducing poverty were presented for replication.
(PIA-XI/Mai Gevera)
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Ittihad's services and projects include a Consumer Store, Primary Health Care/Family Planning and Reproductive Health, and Adult and Day Care Literacy Classes.
Other services and projects also focus on Organic Farming
and Development of other Income Generating Projects.
Ittihad representatives join the women and youth empowerment group during the small group discussion. 
