Our Vision
Redeemed from helplessness,Empowered to choose right.
The street is home to an estimated one and a half million children in the Philippines, some 250,000 of them in the cities. Left in the streets to survive, they fall prey to the dangers of begging, theft, drugs, exploitation, violence, and even prostitution. Many eventually find themselves behind bars. Some lose their lives.
Tuloy offers an alternative to life in the streets. Street children choose to give up the free life in the streets for a home and second family, and education in Tuloy. They learn to embrace a life of discipline, turn away from wrongdoing, and work on their potentials to become one day productive members of society. They regain their dignity. Darkness gives way to hope – “A better life is possible.”
Our Mission
We aim to be a center of excellence in the reintegration of street children into mainstream society through a comprehensive program of caring, healing, and teaching.Tuloy children live, learn, and grow in a nurturing environment where they feel safe and know that they are loved unconditionally.
They are given time to rediscover that they are innately good persons and to unlearn wrong values and behavior. They learn new values and skills by experiencing real-life situations inside Tuloy, and participating in their own development. They are challenged to do what they can. They study, play and do house chores just like other children in homes do. They are given opportunities to express themselves in art, dance, song , sports, or practical arts such as gardening. There is never room for pity or shame just because they were once unschooled, poor street children.
The infrastructure of the Tuloy village may seem luxurious by third-world standards for orphanages and street children homes, but it has been carefully planned and designed to enhance the healing and learning journeys Tuloy children take. By living in an environment that is beautiful, clean and safe, and having a part in keeping it such, Tuloy children learn values such as beauty, cleanliness, safety, respect, responsibility, and accountability.
Tuloy is the only residential care service institution in the Philippines that has its own school for its residents with a curriculum and all the essential facilities that make it an appropriate and effective educational venue for its clientele.
As an organization, Tuloy Foundation, Inc. has a Board of Trustees and a Management Committee composed of professionals and entrepreneurs who lend their wisdom, expertise, and experience to setting and achieving the foundation’s goals.
Why Children?
By Fr. Rocky G. Evangelista, SDBIn one of my drawers in Tuloy, I keep a collection of weapons voluntarily surrendered by the children. It is a constant reminder why I choose children to minister to.
Why children? People have asked me this question countless times. After all, there are many causes no less worthy of attention like the elderly, the dying, people with disabilities, victims of calamities.
As I watched the news of the recent devastation in Haiti, I saw unfamiliar faces but familiar people… people forced into the streets, some dying, all suffering from hunger; fear, panic and despair in their eyes. Many of them were children.
People were moved by the devastation in Haiti. In contrast, street children seem such an ordinary and sometimes even ornery sight, people are hardly moved anymore.
But ordinary children in the streets have devastated lives too.
And the longer we leave them in the streets, the more and deeper their wounds. Worse, for a child who has to live in misery day after day, there is such a thing as A Day Too Late.
…the day he succumbs to the promise of safety and security from a syndicate;
…the day she’s too hungry and weak to fight off the advances of a stranger;
…the day he’s too drugged to realize he has just killed someone, or even to care;
…the day a serious crime is done to him;
Or simply, the day he gives up.
A child in misery in the streets is fertile ground for evil to enter and thrive. An easy victim of exploitation and abuse, an unprotected child is in constant on-the-job training in illegal, illicit, and immoral ways. When pushed to despair, he can turn into a hardened, dangerous individual ready to deliver despair to anyone at any given time.
Children in distress cannot wait.
Through a child, evil can have a multiplier effect on society. Yet, we can so easily redirect his future. Not just by providing his material needs, but by looking comprehensively into what he needs to turn from a hopeless, helpless child into a productive contributing adult member of our society. That takes more than a temporary burst of compassion. Helping a child is not an emotional decision; it has to be a well-thought out commitment to the child and to the adult in him.
Why children?
BECAUSE CHILDREN IN DISTRESS CANNOT WAIT.
