Founders of Pigs for Prosperity, the winner of the “impact” category at the 2019 “Empower Your Dreams” competition, said winning was going to further their mission to help people in the Philippines become self-reliant.
They shared it was a blessing seeing their project, which was influenced from mission experiences, grow into something well-respected.
The team said since August 2018, they have given piglets to five families. With the $5,000 won from the competition, they shared they want to start a piggery, so the project can impact more people in the country where 25 million live people in poverty.
Preparing for the competition
Before they presented their project, the team traveled to the Philippines and spent about six days there. Jordan Richards, a sophomore studying business management from New Zealand and who is spearheading the Pigs for Prosperity team, said its vision is to help Filipinos build better sustainable lives for themselves.
In regards to the trip, he said, “We had interviews and met with a lot of people. We met with the local head of agriculture, and the mayor there and a big Filipino supply feed company.”
Talking about what they achieved through their trip, Jadan Watson, a recent BYUH graduate from California and the third member of the initial class group, added, “We were able to gather so much more information to have a better idea of how things run here. Also, [we learned] how we can really incorporate the project into this area.”
A member of the team, Alysha Gurr, a senior social work major from Canada, said the most rewarding aspect of the project for her was meeting the families, seeing their gratitude, and the hope they had.
One of the team members said during its presentation when back at BYUH, “We learned about several similar projects that failed in the area. You can’t just go over there and give people stuff then leave. You have to teach people self-reliance.” The presenter added, “For now, we are focusing on one Barangay [village]. When we got there, people were already building pig pens. We are looking to start a piggery, which is a pig farm. We want to make a center where people can learn, receive training and work.”
From this eight-month-long project Richards expressed, “One thing I’ve learned is you don’t need to be amazingly skilled to help people. You just need a good desire and drive to help people, and you can do it.”
Watson shared similar sentiments. “The day we were able to meet the families ... became so much more real, and because of that I’m more determined to help this work go forward.”
Giveback policy
Part of the Pigs for Prosperity plan, Richards stated, was to figure out a way to make it sustainable. “The program has a giveback policy. The families are required to give two piglets back to the program, but then those pigs are given out to another family in the community.”
He added, giving families piglets, along with feed, for about four months “provides a stable income, hopefully for the families that raise the pigs. We give them the pigs to raise, then they get pregnant and breed more pigs.”
Mission influences
Roberts said part of the inspiration to help the Philippines came because he served as a missionary in the Philippines Tacloban Mission from 2015 to 2017. Using the contacts he made on his mission, Richards said he was able to establish the program, build connections, find pigs and help make the idea become a reality.
“We found families through people I knew from my mission. I got into contact with a facilities manager for the church in Tacloban, and other people in the Philippines, to find people and help.”
Richards said, “Our big hope is that the entire community can become self-reliant – to have a second means of income to provide for their basic needs.”
He said the project was close to his heart.“I saw children starving out there, and I realized that everything we take for granted, they didn’t have. Working every day out there I knew that I wanted to do something to help those people.”
Richards continued, “When I came to BYU–Hawaii two months after my mission, I was always thinking of ways that I could help. I was always going to Enactus, but I was a bit lost, not sure what to do, but I was always looking for a way.”
Real-world learning
It wasn’t until he took a social entrepreneurship class that Richards said he received the opportunity to help.
Gurr added,“The requirement of the class was a social focus. We wanted to help alleviate poverty, to find a way to give back. It started as a class project that turned to something bigger.”
Richards said, “We were put into groups of three. It was me, Alysha Gurr and Jadan Watson. We added a few others later. It was part of the classwork to work in teams and start a crowdfunding project.”
As the team worked hard, the project took off and Gurr said they raised about $2,500 in a few weeks. “We had an open mic night at Penny’s Malasadas, an indiegogo online campaign, and I also cut hair and had my customers pay to the indiegogo online campaign.”