QK focuses on community-driven development and empowerment to reach the un-reached, under-served and assist in improving the standard of living of the poorest of the poor in Negros Occidental.

Since 12 years ago, QK has been trying to reach out to, and serve the poorest of the poor: the marginalized farmers & farm workers, poor women, and child laborers & their families.

QK has always believed that capacitating the poor is necessary to create a just, free, and peaceful society where there is equal access to opportunities, cultural identities and citizens’ honor are upheld and respect for creation promoted.

How did QK go about it?How did QK go about it?

QK strengthened the capacities of the poor to plan and design their own destinies.

QK facilitated among the communities of the poor the barangay development planning.

Communities identified their own priorities and implemented projects to realize their priorities.

QK assisted barangays in limiting their priorities in such a way that they are implemented in three years.

The Project Management Committee (PMC) was created to enable communities realize their priorities.

Communities implemented their projects through the PMC in cooperation with the basic sectors and people’s organization in the barangay.

QK’s Agricultural Micro-Finance Window found shape from the experiences of the PMC.

One major priority of the poor: an alternative livelihood system and improvement of existing farming system.

In early 2005, QK facilitated the establishment of an agricultural window in five selected barangays.

The pilot project covered 500 hectares and 600 farmer cooperators.

Upon consultation with the barangays, the pilot agricultural window focused on four commodities: sugarcane, rice, vegetables, and coffee.

The agricultural window was managed by the farmers themselves with the help of a community-based agricultural technician.

The agricultural window included: a mutual guarantee fund, production loans for family-based agriculture, technology improvement in coordination with government and private institutions.

Based on the pilot experiences of the farm cooperators, these were accomplished: agricultural credit, inventory fund, technological improvement.

During the pilot project, the farmers raised 20% of the total loans availed which comprised their savings component.

As of December 2008, QK’s agricultural window covered from 5 to 10 barangays, expanding the coverage to 1,200 hectares and 1,000 farmers.

Microfinance plays an important role in developing community-based, community-directed agriculture.

Microfinance also plays an important role in reducing poverty and promoting community-led rural development.

The poor are capable of working for poverty reduction and planning for their community development.

QK’s agricultural window affirmed the farmers capability to rely on their own economic assets.

It also confirmed farmers’ abilities to take greater responsibilities over their own families and community development.

In cooperation with Pag-Inupdanay Inc. (PI), QK referred successful farmers to PI as individual borrowers.

PI, through its agricultural microfinance program, has adopted QK’s five pilot barangays.

PI has covered 50% of the required production costs in these five barangays.

QK will continue to undertake the social preparations for Pag-Inupdanay’s borrowers.

For the next 3 years, QK intends to expand its financial and non-financial services to more family-based farmers.

Its Agricultural Microfinance Window will be composed of the following:

- Agricultural Credit - Inventory Credit Fund - Technology Improvement

QK’s plans have been anchored on lessons learned from working with small farmers, poor mothers, child laborers and their families.

QK’s plans build on the insight that the poorest of the poor can uphold their rights to expand their options, plan their future and collectively work for the creation of better family and community lives.

QK will always be guided by the insight that the barangay is an arena for a battle against people’s poverty.

QK’s experiences have shown that the community-based, community-oriented, community-directed poverty reduction program can be effective for the communities themselves.

“Every human being, no matter how ignorant or submerged in the culture of silence, s/he may be, is capable of looking critically at his/her world in a dialogical encounter with others. Provided with the proper tools for such encounter, s/he can gradually perceive his/her personal and social reality as well as the contradictions in it, become conscious of his/her own perception of that reality, and deal critically with it.”

- Paolo Freire