Digital platforms have being reconfigured to use their accessibility and expandable capacities to ease the impact of the economic slump on the poor and vulnerable in the backdrop of the continuing pandemic that has pushed more families deeper into poverty.
Caritas Manila, the Catholic Church’s lead social service ministry in the Philippines, is co-launching the Tuloy Aral Project to facilitate the food demand of over 5,000 youngsters scholars from the country’s poorest areas while also assisting the livelihood of rural small – scale farmers through technological advances.
Also spearheading the project is GrabPay, the leading e-wallet of super-app Grab, and Mayani, an impact-driven ag-ecommerce platform with over 28,000 smallholder farmers, including the Pililia farmers of the Pilipinas Shell Foundation, Inc (PSFI).
“For the past 60 years, Caritas Manila has been actively shaping total human development and assisting the needs of the unfortunate members of our society through mission-driven partnerships,” says Fr. Anton Pascual, Executive Director of Caritas Manila. “This project firmly complements our Youth Servant Leadership & Education Program (YSLEP), while concurrently extending our alleviation outcomes to our local farmers by sourcing the donated food packs from them.”
YSLEP, which covers the children of the displaced workers due to the pandemic, aims to put them through college and technical vocation education, while giving them necessary means and basic support like food as they complete their schooling.
“While technology is the core enabling engine for mobilizing broad online support for Tuloy Aral, its impact components are very social and two-fold: helping farmers at the grassroots and supporting the basic nourishment needs of the youth scholars. We are glad to play a fundamental role in making this happen, especially now when it matters the most,” remarked JT Solis and Atty. Ron Dime, the Co-Founders of Mayani, whose farm-to-table play has been revolutionizing the agricultural supply in the country.
Mayani, who now powers the fresh produce value chain of the likes of Shell, Robinsons, and Waltermart, among others, is a long-standing partner of GrabPay with the latter serving as it’s e-wallet of choice in the Mayani ag-ecommerce site. Their existing collaborations include the ongoing Online National Food Fair for Cordillera farmers with the backing of the Department of Trade and Industry.
Starting in August, Grab will use its mobile app to increase Tuloy Aral’s signal, going to the Mayani ag-ecommerce site, which will have a variety of handpicked vegetable, fruit, and rice boxes for the marketplace to choose from and give. Mayani will bolster the project’s online reach by utilizing all of its digital platforms, as well as important billboard sites across Metro Manila, in collaboration with HDI Adventures, its ad-tech lead partner.
Farmers in Pililia, Rizal will collect the fresh vegetables in each box as part of PSFI’s Integrated Farming Bio-Systems initiative, which will then be processed by Mayani and shipped to Caritas Manila for dispersal.
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