Somewhere in the Philippines, Mang Jose shares a pack of noodles with his family of five. It is their first meal of the day, and their only one. His children will again have to endure their stomach pains tonight, unless they learn to scavenge food from the garbage and re-cook them: a skill Mang Jose learned from living in the slums. After all, most of their neighbors have done it. About 4 million households or 20 million poor Filipinos are experiencing involuntary hunger, according to the Social Weather Station survey, second quarter of 2009. Mang Jose tells us, "I don't know any other way. I don't want my children to sleep hungry everyday."  In a country with 9.7 million hectares of arable, idle land, it is not right that Mang Jose's children should have to eat from the garbage can.

Bayan-Anihan, which means "community harvest", believes that to solve the problem of hunger in the Philippines, we must empower the poor to produce their food with their own able hands.  We are setting up sustainable food programs in every impoverished community and bringing together concerned partners from the government, universities, corporations, and the youth to share their time, resources and expertise to the community to make sure that every Filipino family will never have to be hungry again. We believe that if we teach a man how to fish, in this case how to plant, we will indeed feed him for a lifetime. Today, Bayan-Anihan is planting the seeds of hope towards that beautiful vision of a hunger-free and prosperous Philippines.