Consuelo Zobel Alger Foundation

We at Consuelo join the observance of International Youth Day with a throwback to our Teachers’ Training on Skills for Life and Life Skills for Employability (SFL-LSE)! ♥️🙋🏽‍♂️🙋🏽‍♀️🧰

Through discussions and live demonstrations, we helped our partners gain knowledge and skills 🧠🔧📚 to effectively introduce the young people under their care to our SFL-LSE sessions. These sessions aim at helping the youth realize their innate potential to rise above the challenges of the ever-changing world, and to make a difference in their communities as caring, self-reliant, and empowered members of the society. 🫰 💼✨

Every year, since 2000, the world observes on August 12 to mark and honor the contribution of today's youth in the development of society, and to amplify the need to protect and support them so that they can realize their full potential as change makers. ⚡️🌹🌏

Our commemoration of Lola Consuelo's hope-giving mission continues! This afternoon, we announce our Most Outstanding Hope Bearers (MOHB) for 2024.

We celebrate three exceptional people who take to heart Consuelo’s desire to renew hope for those who lost it and give hope to those who never had it.

Since 2022, Consuelo has given the MOHB to houseparents, mentors, and facilitators who display exceptional commitment to protect and empower children in need of hope and healing. Winners are selected from nominations submitted by their peers from the Foundation’s partner organizations.

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Today, as we celebrate Lola Consuelo’s life and legacy on her 110th birthday, we shine a light on how Consuelo Foundation works with its partners to help children in previously hopeless situations 👦🏽👧🏽 become testaments of resilience and healing. 🫰❤️‍🩹

Happy Consuelo day! 🌹

Consuelo Organizational Video Consuelo Zobel Alger Foundation inspires hope and healing for children, women, and families through transformative, resilience-building programs and partners...

May iba’t ibang mukha at anyo ang pagiging ama. Saludo kami sa lahat ng tumatayong sandigan at tagapagtaguyod ng bawat bahay at buhay! Salamat sa inyong pagmamahal, paggabay, at pagbibigay-pag-asa! 🫶🏼

Happy Father’s Day mula sa amin sa Consuelo! 🌹✨

Today, we observe the country’s 126th Independence Day 🇵🇭 and the 24th World Day Against Child Labor. 🧒🏽👧🏽🌏

Children have the right to grow freely and be cared for in the best possible way. Unfortunately, some of them are denied of their rights and freedoms and worse, are forced into child labor due to neglect and extreme poverty.

Together with our hope-bearing partners, we at Consuelo work so that children who survived or are at risk of ALL forms of abuse, exploitation, and harm, are in safe, loving, and healing environments, to restore their hope and honor their rights.
🌱 ❤️‍🩹 🌹

Let’s look back to our five-day Houseparents’ Training with our new partners, a joint effort with A Child's Trust Is Ours to Nurture - ACTION Inc.

All children need the love, care, and protection of a strong family. 🧒🏽👧🏽❤️ Unfortunately, some of them end up in institutional care for various reasons. Through training such as this, we at Consuelo provide houseparents with the knowledge and guidance they need to give the ideal care these children need to heal and thrive. 🌱 ❤️‍🩹 🌹

This Global Day of Parents, we honor parents of all kinds—especially the houseparents of our partner organizations, who showered genuine hope, love, and concern to their children not by blood, but by heart.

During our Houseparents’ Training in April with A Child's Trust Is Ours to Nurture - ACTION Inc., we asked some of the participants what symbolizes their love as houseparents to children who found a home in them. 🌹

Yesterday, we gathered our partner teachers, houseparents, social workers, and youth workers for our Teachers’ Training for our Skills for Life and Life Skills and Employability (SFL-LSE) modules! ❤️🙋🙋🏽‍♀️📚

Dr. Yella Castillo, our managing director for the Philippine Branch, and Greg Auberry, our President and CEO, joined us in welcoming our partners.

The SFL-LSE modules aim to equip the youth under our partners’ care with the essential skills 🔧 to get jobs and perform them well, 💼🧰 build resilience to navigate 🚘 all of life’s everyday challenges, and empower them to make a difference ✨ in their communities and the country at large.

Motherhood takes different forms. 👩🏻‍💼👩🏻‍🍼🧕🏼 Our dear founder, Lola Consuelo, is herself an example of motherly love that transcends bloodlines. 🌹

Before breathing life into the Foundation, she built a place for young survivors of abuse and exploitation to call home. These children found hope and healing 👦🏽❤️‍🩹👧🏽 from the generosity and concern of the person they had fondly called “Mom Alger.”

Consuelo salutes all mothers by blood and by heart, and their acts of care, nurturing, and hope-giving that are woven into the beautiful tapestry of motherhood. Happy Mother’s Day!

We were more than glad to witness the release of tilapia fingerlings 🐟 into the ponds built by the Conrado & Ladislawa Alcantara Foundation for the beneficiaries of its livelihood initiative. 🎣 The recipients of the ponds and fingerlings are communities of indigenous families in Malungon and Maasim towns in Sarangani province.

Conrado & Ladislawa Alcantara Foundation, Inc. is a Consuelo partner under the Family Strengthening (FS) program. ❤️🏠 The FS program empowers families to provide safe, nurturing, loving, and supportive environments for their children. 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🫶🏽🌹 This, by providing parents and primary caregivers with livelihood assistance, workshops on positive parenting and trauma-informed care, and other opportunities to help them put their children’s rights and well-being first.

Once a Consuelo partner, always a partner! 🤝 ❤️ Last Friday (Apr. 12), we visited Valenzuela City, a former partner under our Child Abuse Prevention and Intervention Network (CAPIN), to formally hand over 500 copies of Ang Katawan Ko at Ako.

The book, co-developed by Consuelo and Adarna House, aims to teach children 👦🏽👧🏽 the concepts of consent and body safety in a fun and engaging way.

Present in the signing of the deed of donation were Dorothy Evangelista, Chief of Social Welfare Operations; Dr. Mariella Castillo, Managing Director of Consuelo Foundation; and Ma. Kristina Ramos, Social Welfare Officer IV, Valenzuela Child Protection Center (CPC).

Consuelo and Valenzuela City CPC also sat down to explore prospects for partnerships on child protection, especially to help strengthen its capabilities as the world’s first pathfinding city 🌏 to end violence against children. 🌹🌱

Today, Araw ng Kagitingan, is for remembering our forebears who gave us, not only freedom, but also a reason to hope. ✨🤲🏼✨🇵🇭

May their courage continue to inspire us in our pursuit of a better world for children. May it also inspire the children under our care in their respective healing journeys. 🌹🌱

This World Health Day 🌍⚕️, let’s prioritize our health, and the health and wellbeing of our children! 👶🏼👦🏽👧🏽🌍

Like us, children deserve a healthy and safe environment to grow. Let's nurture a healthy lifestyle that will enable them to grow and thrive. 🌺🌹🌷

As March winds down, we at Consuelo Foundation celebrate the enduring spirit of women whose efforts sow seeds of hope and empowerment to the children and communities we serve. 🌹

We cap off this year’s Women’s Month by featuring our 2023 Most Outstanding Hope Bearers. ✨ We're inspired by these women who have gone beyond dreaming of a better world for children, and have actually devoted their life to building it! 🌱

Here’s to the women who provide healing to children who need it most, nurture their growth, and strengthen the spaces and communities they call home!🎉👩🏻‍🍼👩🏻‍💼🧕🏼👩🏻‍💻

Tomorrow (March 20, 2024), we formally kick off our learning journey with the 2024 cohort of Consuelo partners 🌹 through our Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL), Communications, and Finance Training! 📊📝📈

This is the first of a series of workshops to equip our partners with the knowledge and skills to implement evidence-based 🔍, trauma-informed 🫶🏽 interventions for children under their care, and report their gains 📈 and learnings ✏️ along the way.

We are looking forward to seeing our partners whom we last saw in the 2023 Annual Partner’s Meeting, where we gave our partners a preview of our results-based approach to protect and empower children 👦🏽👧🏽 Check out these snaps 📷 from last year’s APM.

Happy International Women’s Day from Consuelo Foundation! 🌹

Today, we celebrate women 🙎🏽‍♀️🧕🏼👩🏻‍💼👩🏻‍🍼 and their role in inspiring hope and empowerment to children.

We commit to remain partners in building a world where hope, healing, and inclusion thrive! 🌏🫶🏽

Happy New Year from all of us at Consuelo Foundation! 🥳🎆🎊🎉

Let us all welcome and embrace the many new possibilities the new year brings for our shared mission to bring hope to those who have lost it and those who have never had it. 🎉✨🌹

Maligayang Pasko from all of us at Consuelo Foundation! 🎄✨

In the spirit of this season, we celebrate and reflect on the hope-giving mission we share with our partners. Thank you, Mahalo, and Salamat! 🎁🎉

May your holidays be filled with warmth, and may the new year reenergize all of us so we can continue to keep the hope alive in the hearts of the children we seek to serve. 🌹

We, at Consuelo Foundation, extend our heartfelt holiday greetings to all of you, our cherished friends and partners. 🎁✨🌹

Kindly note that Consuelo will be taking a brief break from December 20, 2023 to January 1, 2024.

It’s been a month since Arugâ: An Alternative Child Care Conference! 🎊

Again, we’d like to thank the community of child care and protection practitioners for sharing your stories and insights about alternative care options, and for committing to ensure these options will better bring healing and hope to every child in need of arugâ. 🌹

It is our pleasure to share that former and current Life Skills Plus (LS+) partners—A Child's Trust Is Ours to Nurture - ACTION Inc., and Negrosanon Young Leaders Institute Inc. (NYLI), respectively—were recently recognized by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) as Outstanding Social Welfare and Development Agencies! 🎉🏆

ACTION and NYLI are among the 2023 recipients of this recognition for their tireless pursuit of improving the lives of vulnerable sectors, including children and youth. 🌹

ACTION empowered young children to know their reproductive rights and choices as Consuelo LS+ partners from 2019 to 2022. Our ongoing partnership with NYLI aims to help children be champions of their own causes: Some of these children recently joined the Consuelo Youth Advocates Network as pioneer facilitators. ✨👧🏻🧒🏻👦🏻✨

Congratulations! 🎉🎉🎉 We at Consuelo are honored to be your partners in giving hope to the children and youth we seek to serve. Mabuhay kayo! 🌹✨🏆👏🏼

Yesterday (Nov. 30), we celebrated our partners’ contributions, and the things we can dream about and do together through , our 2023 Annual Partners’ Meeting!

Thanks to our partners, and their genuine desire to have a better world for every Filipino child, 👦🏽👧🏽 Consuelo Foundation’s Philippine branch 🇵🇭 has been able to touch the lives of nearly one million children and about 90,000 families who needed healing and empowerment. ❤️‍🩹🌱

Throughout the day, we bridged our partners with each other to maximize opportunities for exchanging knowledge and expertise 🔍, and to forge new connections 🤝 towards the protection and advancement of children’s rights and well-being. 🫶🏽 This, in alignment with Lola Consuelo’s desire to help fellow hope-givers in helping those in greatest need, and until the need is fulfilled. 🌹

It has been a week since we at Consuelo hosted Arugâ: An Alternative Child Care Conference together with the National Authority for Child Care and the Department of Social Welfare and Development!

Among the highlights of this two-day conference are action points explored and committed by child caring and placing agencies from no less than the Undersecretaries of NACC and DSWD.

Arugâ was driven by the desire to identify concrete actions from our shared understanding of the ideal quality of care for all children. Every child, regardless of circumstance should be born and raised in the same loving care—lahat ng bata, laki sa iisang arugâ. 🌹

Conversations from last week’s Arugâ: An Alternative Child Care Conference surfaced realities about the welfare and placement of children deprived of parental care.

While taking stock of the current landscape, including recent gains such as streamlining the adoption processes, our guests from the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council, the Council for the Welfare of Children, Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT), and International Justice Mission, unpacked gaps in human resources, investments, infrastructure, and capacity and awareness building, which get in the way of serving the best interests of children in need of care.

Arugâ aimed to connect local and national players in alternative child care towards eventually mapping the pathways for all children in need of care ❤️‍🩹 to eventually find homes to call theirs, 🏡 return to a more stable and loving family environment, 🫶🏽 or are able to chart their own destinies with the help of independent living programs. 💪🏽🌹

We at Conuselo join the Child Rights Network (CRN) Philippines and the rest of the country in observing the ! 🇵🇭👦🏽👧🏽

We are one with our partners in child care 🌱 and protection 🛡️ in ensuring the needs and interests of children, especially those who survive or at risk of abuse, neglect, and exploitation, are promoted and met. As this year’s theme declares, we believe that it takes raising empowered children to build an empowered nation.

We at Consuelo Foundation are thrilled to partner with the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the National Authority for Child Care for “Arugâ: An Alternative Child Care Conference.”

Our Board Chair, Ms. Connie Lau, and our Managing Director, Doc Yella Castillo, opened this two-day conference today (November 16, 2023) with messages to lay the groundwork for the conference.

Arugâ is a platform for much-needed conversations on alternative child care, and aims to bring child care and protection practitioners together to draw up priority actions to provide the quality of care, tenderness, and love for children who may have lost it, and to those who may never have had it. 🌹

Last week’s Consuelo’s Houseparents’ Training with A Child's Trust Is Ours to Nurture - ACTION Inc. ended with a deep dive into positive discipline. 🫶🏽👩🏽👨🏽 Our houseparents had a blast showing how they do it in their shelters through tableaus and skits!

Positive discipline weaves together warmth and structure in rearing our children 🧒🏽👧🏽❤️ and helping them grow to be loving, understanding, and self-reliant adults. Warmth 🥰 ensures that children acquire empathy while also learning to be kind to themselves. Structure, meanwhile, provides the anchor ⚓️ that guides children to learn from mistakes without blame or shame and make it a habit to make good decisions.

During their skit activity, 🎭 our participating houseparents showed and explained how they apply positive discipline. This, as they journey with the children under their care towards growth, 🌱 healing, ❤️‍🩹and the readiness for the world that awaits their better selves. 🌹