The Art of Changemaking

Yesterday (Sunday, June 13) was a proud moment for the Zs and our friends as we all trooped to Bonifacio Global City to support the Bottle School Run. For those of you who have missed our updates, the Bottle School Run was a 3k, 5k, and 10k marathon that brought together runners from all over the metropolis to raise awareness–and bottles!–for the construction of the country’s first-ever Bottle School. My husband Paul, together with his friends Jean Govinda and Agit Sustento of Kadangyan, provided the ambient music using Paul’s recycled Kali drum and Aquadrum setup to drive home the point that beautiful things can come out of recycling, while my friends and I volunteered to handle media and documentation for the event. All in all, it was a super worthwhile activity for which to wake up very early–or to not sleep at all!–on a Sunday morning.

At the Bottle School Run: My Shelter Foundation founder Illac Diaz, Mr. & Mrs. Z, the Rock the Vote new media team, Advocacy Photographers, Jean Govinda & Agit Sustento of Kadangyan | Photo by Liz Reyes

Paul Zialcita, Jean Govinda & Agit Sustento on the Kalidrum & Aquadrum setup at the Bottle School Run | Photo by Liz Reyes

Now, what exactly is a Bottle School?

This is what a bottle wall looks like | Photo by Sebastiao Moia

A Bottle School is a structure that uses 1.5- and 2-liter plastic soda bottles as hollow blocks. When these bottles are filled with clay, earth (the same material used in MyShelter Foundation’s Earthen Schools), cement, and human hair waste as fiber binding, what results are very strong, very durable, and weather-proof building blocks for structures that will later on serve as schools and, in times of disaster and calamity, evacuation centers. According to information given to us by MyShelter Foundation, the organization behind the Bottle School Project, plastic blocks are more durable than hollow blocks because they will not break and under pressure.

The finished product: A bottle school! | Photo by Sebastiao Moia

While it takes significantly less resources to build a bottle school than to build ordinary structures, funds and materials still need to be raised in order to begin constructing the school. The run itself was conceptualized to raise awareness for the project and to get community support, but the event is by no means THE highlight activity here. As MyShelter Foundation founder Illac Diaz reiterates, the run is just a means to a much bigger end. “We’re not here to run just for the sake of running,” he has said onstage and behind the scenes. “We are here to run TOWARD something, to show that we can create concrete, sustainable solutions to problems that beset us year after year.”

“Each year, we raise millions and millions of pesos for relief and rehabilitation–such as what happened last year when we were battered by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng. It makes you wonder if we can’t raise money and work for solutions BEFORE calamities hit,” Illac shares. “If we build more resilient structures BEFORE we need them, then we’ll have safer schools and evacuation centers to house people when they need them.”

Illac reiterates: “If this keeps happening to us year after year, at some point we’ll have to wake up and see that we’ve been focusing on the wrong end of the problem.”

After the run, what next?

The Bottle School Run itself garnered the support of some 2,500 runners–some coming from the Philippine Navy, the Philippine Air Force, the Philippine Coast Guard, school varsity teams, sponsor companies such as Insular Life and Pepsi, and from everywhere else in the city. They each brought with them the requisite two-bottle donation that comes with the registration fee, and many of them expressed hope that their participation in the activity would lead to greater things.

The Bottle School Run marathoners | Photo by Liz Reyes

Now comes the exciting–and challenging–part: after the media blitz of the run, after Illac’s interviews and people coming up to him for photo ops, after the hoopla of people coming out to say that they were part of a highly publicized run, a school needs to be built–and fast. The beneficiary community, Maharlika Village, is an impoverished village in the City of Taguig which houses many of its migrants from other provinces around the country, and the schoolchildren need a place for study and shelter before the storms come battering us again. The school itself can be built in just one month, but MyShelter Foundation still needs A LOT of support before they can break ground and begin actual construction.

Would YOU like to help us build a bottle school?

Whether you’re a runner or not, would you be willing to donate bottles or some time and a little treasure to make history AND give the schoolchildren of Maharlika Village a new, sturdier place to learn?

If your answer is YES, then please send an email to myshelterfoundation.ph@gmail.com and let us know how you can help. And please help us spread the word to your family and friends! We need more changemakers like you. We’re also excited to MAKE HISTORY WITH YOU and to show the rest of our country and the world that there are now no more excuses, only possibilities.