Unless their parents work in the academe, kids are likely away from them when in school. But that doesn’t mean they can’t show love for one another while apart. At Educational Research and Development Assistance (ERDA) Foundation, Inc., parents are called to be involved in their child’s schooling.

Nena Avelino, a former scavenger on Smokey Mountain, is a mother to five children. One of her two sons, Andoy, was an ERDA scholar. Before his family learned of the non-government organization (NGO), Andoy used to help his mother look for scraps when she would go around the landfill. “Nung nakapasok na siya sa ERDA SaBaNa [Sanayan ng mga Batang Nanambakan, the NGO’s development center in Tondo, Manila], hindi na siya sumasama sa akin [When he got to enter ERDA SaBaNa, he would not go with me anymore],” said Ms. Avelino. She explained that ERDA urges kids to forgo scavenging and instead focus on their studies.

On September 19, 2014, Educational Research and Development Assistance (ERDA) Foundation, Inc. marked its 40th anniversary. It was also the 100th birthday of the group’s founder, Fr. Pierre Tritz. For these two occasions, ERDA does not want to limit its plans within the non-government organization (NGO). Rather, anyone interested may look for ways to help them out.

With just around 40 employees nationwide, ERDA welcomes volunteers who would like to join their work, Joana Ramos, technical assistant at ERDA, said. Volunteers may be of any age, ethnicity, or religion.

At the mere mention of kids, Fr. Pierre Tritz’s eyes brightened as he smiled from ear to ear. “My work is to help children and the poor who have no money to get an education,” said the 99-year-old Jesuit who has led Educational Research and Development Assistance (ERDA) Foundation, Inc. for almost four decades.

Though born in France, Fr. Tritz has spent most of his life elsewhere. He served as a missionary in China from 1936 to 1948 until political conflict began to rise in the country. Fr. Tritz was then sent to the Philippines in 1950. Over the years, he fell in love with the country and chose to stay. In 1974, he founded ERDA as a response to an article on dropout rates in local public schools. Both fading and recent-looking photos of him with friends—from different age brackets and social classes—cover his desk at the non-government organization (NGO). Today, ERDA focuses on (1) educational assistance, (2) child, family, and community assistance, and (3) child protection.

The Bottom-up Budgeting program of the national government has been and continues to be a welcome reform initiative to the citizens of the poorest municipalities, especially to the citizens belonging to the organized sector, the civil society organizations (CSOs).

Based on the model of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre in Brazil, this reform in the public fiscal budget preparation engages, for the first time, the community members through CSOs to take an active part in preparing the budget side-by-side with the local government officials. This approach seeks to allocate scarce resources to the identified needs of the community and hopefully will result in poverty reduction.