“Either I have Php 2 for my allowance or nothing at all, that’s how I have been surviving school”– Nieyhan Mejares remembers vividly how her parents struggled to provide for them.

Nieyhan is a 17 year-old student from Toril, Davao City. Her motivation to strive hard in finishing her studies is the struggles of her parents in providing their basic needs. She has witnessed how her parents tried to lift them out of poverty. Their situation is no different from the community that she is in, families in extreme difficulties and struggling to send their children in school. Hence, the desperation to lift her family out of poverty. 

Before becoming a beneficiary of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, Nieyhan is unsure with how she will finish school. Even though the determination is there, she is very aware of how limited their resources are. 

“Due to poverty, I might not be able to reach senior high school. Without the program, I won’t be able to proceed to college. This program will help me achieve my dreams in life which is to be a nurse or a detective someday.”

Nieyhan emphasized her desire to help her family, to lift them out of poverty, to educate her siblings and to treat her father’s illness. So her first step in achieving her dreams is to utilize every help that she can get from the government. 

“Now that we are beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilya, our lives have improved.”- Nieyhan

The financial support that her family received have greatly supported them to function as a person and as a family. She can now go to school mentally and physically prepared. With the Family Development Sessions being conducted for the beneficiaries, she is confident that their community will improve.

True enough, Nieyhan mentioned how happy she was when she saw her community transformed. Children have completed senior high school and kids were as healthier as before. She sees these changes as a positive indicator that it is not just her family but also her community’s transformation towards more opportunities in health, education, and development of their well-beings.