assists low income families improve their lives by building organic vegetable gardens to help them with their health and nutrition as well as provide them with a reliable source of additional income.

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Better Lives Partner Since: 2012
Organic Vegetables Gardens Built:
Livestock Loans Disbursed:
Business Loans Disbursed:
Home Improvement Loans Disbursed:

Programs

Organic Vegetable Gardening
Happy Shine Garden Shop has partnered with three primary schools in Caba, Philippines to implement FAITH Organic Vegetable Gardens for local families. School gardens and compost production-lines provide hands-on learning opportunities for students. They also help
Happy Shine identify children who will benefit most from family vegetable gardens at home. The school gardens have enabled Happy Shine to build gardens for families throughout Caba.

School WASH Infrastructure
Happy Shine Garden Shop worked with San Carlos Elementary School to build a new water system so that the school could support a success FAITH Organic Vegetable Gardening program. Happy Shine partnered with other local organizations to complete the project which included a 1,000L steel water tank, a water pump, a tank stand, and faucets.

Micro-Loans
Families who maintain productive gardens can qualify for micro-loans to increase family income. Pig-fattening loans have proven to be one of safest and most effective loans to distribute in the Philippines. Families buy two young piglets, fatten them at home, and sell them when they are full grown. The loans are safe because, even if one piglet dies, profits from the other are sufficient to repay the loans. The loans are effective because pig-fattening is easy to learn and if both pigs survive parents can use profits to purchase new piglets and make the business self-sustaining.