Sunday, October 21, 2007 Lending hands By Mayette Q. Tabada
IT’S yet to be invented, human scales for weighing good.
But, according to Leonora Augusto, an act started by a group of friends long before she was born radiates nothing but good will.
The 24-year-old native of Pusok, Lapu-Lapu was stricken with polio when just a year old. After finishing high school, she was drifting into the street life of aimlessness when a friend told her about a center that trained and helped the differently abled to work, earn and live in dignity.
In 2005, Nora found her way to Casuntingan, Mandaue City, where Goodwill Industries of Cebu Inc. now has its modern facilities.
When 24 friends met with Severino Luna, founder of Goodwill Industries of the Philippines, on Oct. 2, 1982, it was an auspicious beginning for an initiative born on the same year as the international observance of the Year of the Disabled.
The first Goodwill Workshop was opened at F. Manalo St. in July 1984. Inspired by Fr. Louie G. Hechanova, CSsR, and Fr. Rafael N. Borromeo, SJ, the center attracted other volunteers, and eventually institutions, committed to giving the disabled holistic rehabilitation and training.
In keeping with the international Goodwill movement, began in 1902 by Dr. Edgar H. Helms in Boston, Massachusetts and now involving 33 other countries, including the Philippines, Goodwill Industries of Cebu Inc. aimed to “lend a hand, not a handout” to persons with disabilities (PWDs).
This altruistic desire was boosted when local and overseas benefactors assisted in acquiring a 1,150-square meter lot in Casuntingan and constructed the modern complex of disabled-friendly buildings housing the production areas, canteen, library, music room and other offices.
When the local chapter of Goodwill marked its 25th anniversary last Oct. 2, Nora and some 200 trainees were joined by local and foreign guests, which included George W. Kessinger, Goodwill Industries International Inc. president and chief executive officer (CEO), and John B. Latchford, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of the Greater East Bay Inc.
Kessinger praises Goodwill Cebu for being an Asian leader, “outstanding for its service and leadership” in empowering PWDs.
Norma S. Borromeo, Goodwill Cebu founding and present president, sees more tie-ups with partner institutions. Aside from subcontracting with Lear Automotive and Timex Philippines Inc., Goodwill Cebu will start with Gawad Kalinga a housing project for the disabled, she reveals.
For Nora, the approximately P6,000 pay she takes home every month from assembling cartons goes a long way in lightening the burdens of her fisherman father and housewife mother, both in their early 60s.
Working with colleagues having more serious disabilities challenges Nora to tap her potentials. “Nahimo man gani nila, hay labi ako (if they can do it, why can’t I)?”
In touching the Noras in their midst, Goodwill Cebu lives up to Proverbs 11:27: “He who seeks good finds goodwill.”
